Naruto: Ice Remix
by TheButterflyQueen
Summary: They were always fated to be together, fight together, love together. Now here they were a band of orphans that strove to be the best ninja that anyone had ever seen. Team 7, Team Orphan, Team Troublemaker. Together with their mysterious sensei and the gypsy girl they called their elder sister they struggled through life and learned what it was like to live as shinobi.
1. Chapter 1

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

Hello everyone this is my first fiction so please do excuse any mistakes you find. This fiction will be all about Team 7 and a bit about my OC, I've got to make it fun for me too you know? Anyways, I plan on diverging from the original plot and creating my own but we'll see. Anyways I do hope you enjoy it! -Butterfly

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**Gypsies, Ice, & Family : Prologue**

The streets of Konoha were busier than usual that night. Paper lanterns zig zaged between buildings and the savory aroma of barbecued meat scented the air. Loud music and rambunctious laughter could be heard from all corners of the village and people of all ages and occupations filled the streets.

Today was the day the gypsies came, a once in the blue moon occasion that brought festivities and wide smiles. However, even with said festivities three pair of lonely eyes could be seen through out the village.

Onyx eyes perched atop of a tree top scorned the event and the frivolous nature of the people they watched.

Wandering the street, shining blue eyes watched the event with wonder but, kept to the ground to avoid the harsh stares and whispers.

Tear filled, emerald eye watched a group of little girls scamper away leaving her alone and bruised in a forgotten alleyway.

Today was the day when the gypsies came.

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Sorry that it's short but this is the prologue of the prologue so... yeah? The other chapters will be longer, pinky promise. -Butterfly


	2. Chapter 2

**Naruto : Ice Remix**

Hello all! Not much to say other than sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes there are. I've read, reread, and edited this so many times that I can no longer find mistakes. Sigh. - Butterfly

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**Blue Eyes**

Small hands wiped the droll that came to the corner of his mouth as he eyed some freshly skewered meat.

"Hey lady! How much?"

The middle aged women looked up at the young child before her. He looked to barely be the age of 7, perhaps even younger. He had blonde spikey hair, wore clothing that were obviously two sizes too large, and had the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen.

"Where are your parents sweetie?" she asked.

It was a harmless question, a question any responsible adult would ask if they saw such a small child alone at such an event. He knew that. But it still hurt.

"I don't have parents."

Tension quickly filled the air and the woman began stuttering unsure how to respond.

"It's a ryo per but I'll give you some for free if you play with me," a happy voice sang.

Startled, the women turned to the offending voice but visibly relaxed when she recognized the girl. The women began chastising her for giving away food but the girl payed no mind and kept a pair of mischievous eyes on the boy.

The girl had bright violet eyes with golden specks and collarbone length snow-white hair the waved every which way. She wore a dark blue scarf around her head, a billowing cream colored tank top, and a flowing sky blue maxi skirt that had a slight split on the right side. Curiously enough she wore no shoes although rows of cloth anklets decorated both ankles, one of which had a small cluster of silver bell.

"Well," the girl questioned ignoring the woman.

"Uh...Sure?"

The boy wasn't quite sure what was happening but he didn't quite care as long as free meat was involved, besides he wouldn't mind company. Company was great.

The girls eyes shined happily at the boys answer. She then grabbed a plate of the meat and the boy's hand while quickly exclaiming that she'd pay the women back later. Ignoring the women's slightly angry protest, the girl ran through the crowd, dragging the younger boy along with her. After running for a few minutes the girl deemed the pair "safe" and sat under a tree, resting her back against the bark.

"So..." She began, eyeing the boy before her. "What's your name?"

"I'm Naruto! Naruto Uzumaki! Fukure Hokage of Konoha! Who're you?" Naruto proudly replied. Naruto didn't understand why people always looked at him strangely but he took pride in his name and his goal. He was going to be the Hokage and then everyone would stop looking at him strangely and calling him names. Yes, he was going to be Hokage and everyone was going to acknowledge him and remember his name. He was going to be Naruto the best Hokage that there's ever been, not "loser", not "the monster".

Raine raised an eyebrow at Naruto and handed him the plate of skewers, grabbing one for herself. "Hmm. Future Hokage, huh? Well future Hokage-sama, I'm Raine. Raine Hoshino, future badass ninja and ex-gypsy."

"You're gonna be a ninja?" Naruto asked as he bit into a skewer, wondering internally what exactly a gypsy was. Was it a clan or something?

"What? You didn't hear me? You're gonna need better hearing if you're gonna be Hokage, Naruto-chan," Raine teased sticking her tongue out.

"Chan? Wa-HEY! I've got better hearing than a cat."

Raine giggled lightly at Naruto's reaction and took a bite of her skewer as she stretched her legs out. It grew silent for a bit as both children chewed on their food, listening to the music in the air.

"So.." Naruto began timidly as he nibbled on a piece of meat. "Um.. What exactly- I mean what did you- I mean-uh-uh- AGH." "You," Naruto stated pointing an accusing finger. "Stop laughing at me!"

Raine continued to giggle as she listened to Naruto stumble on his words.

"What'd ya want from me? Givin' me free food and all," Naruto asked skeptically. The girl didn't seem bad but, no one ever gave him anything nice. Besides there was that rule gramps had once told him. Don't accept things from strangers.

"I told you already. I just wanna play and you know? Since I'm moving here all by myself I was hoping to make some friends because being by yourself is lonely and I don't like being lonely. So I guess I was hoping that you'd play with me and we'd become friends... Yeah?"

Naruto looked at Raine like she had grown a second head, "You wanna be my friend?"

"Yeah... Is that weird or something?"

"Well- I- Well- It's just. Like-," Naruto began but was throughly interrupted when the a voice sounded from the branch above of them.

"Naruto's an idiot loser why would you want to be friends with him?"

The pair looked up to the offending voice. A pair of onyx eyes glared back.

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So that's all for this chapter! This chapter was basically Naruto's POV the next will be in Mr. Onyx Eye's pov. I'd like to apologize for future and current OC in the characters but I'm going to be developing each characters personality's a bit differently than the original. (I'll try not to deviate too much.) Especially Sakura though, I can't stand her fangirl-ness so there will be no fangirl-ing. I refuse to allow her to be that emotionally weak. I mean seriously who cares how attractive a person is. If someone treats you like trash you give them the same treatment, not swoon over their "cold" demeanor. Sigh. I'm rambling. Hope you liked it! Reviews are appreciated but not required. See ya! - Butterfly


	3. Chapter 3

**Naruto : Ice Remix**

Hello hello everyone! First off I would like to thank the anon for the review. I'm very happy to know that at least one person enjoys my story so far. Also for anyone who is curious about their ages, Naruto is 6, Sasuke has barely turned 7 (lets say he's been 7 for a few weeks), and Sakura is 6 but will be 7 in a about a month. Raine is the oldest at 9. And, since I couldn't fit this piece of bonus information in I'll have you know that Sasuke's wearing a navy, long-sleeved turtle neck with the Uchiha insignia on the back. It's slightly loose on him and he's wearing a pair of fitted, khaki shorts and the normal ninja shoes that every ninja always wears. Also, another piece of bonus information since I didn't completely describe Naruto's clothing (other than it being really oversized), Nauto's wearing a pale tan-yellow colored tank top with the Uzumaki symbol on the front and the slightly darker colored drawstring shorts although, since the shorts are so big they look like pants, and he has the same shoes as Sasuke. Ok that's all! Enjoy! -Butterfly

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**Onyx Eyes**

"SASUKE! You bastard! What did ya call me?"

Sasuke watched impassively as Naruto sprung to his feet and began furiously marching towards him only to be held back by the strange girl who had asked to be friends with the idiot moments before he had decided to reveal himself. Why would she want to be friends with Naruto? He was dumb, a troublemaker, immature, and worse of all he acted like he hadn't a care in the world. Sasuke hated those kind of people the most but at the same time he envied them although, he would never tell a soul.

"Hey now... Relax Naruto, no need to draw attention by starting a brawl," the girl reasoned, a small smile evident on her face.

Naruto began to protest but sat back down in a huff, taking a huge bite of a skewer as he grumbled to himself.

"Well...Sasuke right," the girl asked tentatively.

"Hn."

"I'll take that as a yes. Anyways... I would like it if you would apologize to Naruto here. That was completely rude and unkind of you to say."

Sasuke allowed a small frown to grace his features. Who did this girl... What was her name? Raine? Who did Raine think she was scolding him of all people. Besides... "Why should I apologize? I merely stated the truth. Everyone calls him that anyways so, why does it matter?"

Raine was taken aback for a moment as Naruto looked towards the ground, a scowl appearing on his face. A similar scowl then appeared on the girl's face.

"I don't know anything about Naruto's intelligence.. But! Calling someone an idiot is mean and I don't think he's a loser. And! Just because everyone calls him that doesn't mean that you should too. That's just being a bully. Your mom would be super sad if she knew that you were bullying people," Raine nearly yelled.

It had only been a few months since the incident and Sasuke had yet to come to terms with what had happened. Therefore...He lost it.

"What the hell do you know about my mom," Sasuke spat. "Don't talk about how she'd feel if you've never met her. You don't know a single thing."

"Then let me meet her and tell her how bad you've been. Then we'll see exactly how she feels about your behavior," Raine stated placing a hand on both of her hips.

Sasuke growled. "Then go kill yourself."

"Excuse me," Raine snarled back.

"Uhm," Naruto tried to interject but was left unheard.

"Then go kill yourself. My mom's dead."

Raine's eyes widened and then soften considerably.

"Well then tell me. Was your mommy nice?"

"Of course she was the nicest woman in the world! She was caring and always made sure I did my homework and always comforted me when dad was being mean and..." Sasuke's voice caught in his throat as tears began to rim his onyx eyes. Suddenly he felt an immense warmth surround his body.

Raine pulled Sasuke closer to her, squashing him up against her adolescent chest as Naruto timidly stroked his hair in an attempt to be comforting.

"Go away. Leave me alone. I don't need your pity," Sasuke whispered as he weakly tried to wiggle his way out of the girls hug.

"It's not pity," Both Naruto and Raine simultaneously replied.

Sasuke continued to squirm but eventually relaxed as he allowed himself to be comforted by the odd girl and Naruto. After a good five minutes of comforting silence, Raine released her hold on Sasuke and Naruto removed his hand from the top of Sasuke's head. Sasuke looked at the pair before him and it dawned upon him. They weren't pitying him. No, it was sympathy. They understood. Maybe not to the finest detail but they understood.

Whilst Sasuke realized what had just transpired Naruto grabbed his hand and sat him down between Raine and himself.

"Eat. Good food helps," Naruto stated handing Sasuke a skewer.

Sasuke reluctantly took the skewer and took a small bite. It was good. It wasn't high-end restaurant quality by any means but it had a rustic quality that Sasuke quite enjoyed, like a home cooked meal.

"Yummy right," Naruto exclaimed with a wide-tooth smile.

"It's food," Sasuke allowed finishing his skewer and grabbing another. He was in fact, hungry.

Naruto rolled his eyes at the passive comment and continued to inhale his food. Raine on the other hand giggled as a knowing smile graced her features.

"So... Will you guys be my friends," Raine asked as she absent mindedly rolled her ankles in small circles.

"Of course," Naruto replied brightly.

"Hn. Whatever I guess," Sasuke replied nonchalantly as his impassive demeanor returned.

Sasuke watched as Raine rolled her eyes but kept a wide smile on her face.

"Hurry and eat so we can play already," Raine commanded as she began relaxing her back against the tree once again.

"What'd you wanna play anyways," Naruto asked with a mouthful of food.

"Don't speak with your mouthful, idiot," Sasuke reprimanded with a disgusted face. He didn't care how comforting Naruto had been, Naruto had no manners whatsoever and it made him cringe.

"Why you-"

"Well," Raine began before Naruto could yell and potentially spit his food all over Sasuke. "The gypsies have a bunch of arcade stalls on that one street over there so, lets go play over there!"

"Let's go! Let's go," Naruto exclaimed jumping to his feet

Sasuke finished his skewer and grabbed the plate to dispose of it seeing that both Naruto and Raine were sure to forget about it and leave it there. Once Sasuke trashed the plate, Raine grabbed his hand and began promptly dragging both Naruto and himself through the crowd of adults and children.

After turning a few corners and running down a few streets they arrived at a street full of all sorts of arcade stalls just as Raine had stated there would be. This particular street was filled with children and lacked the sufficient amount adults needed to handle the children. Sasuke recognized some of his classmates but ignored them all as he allowed Raine to continue dragging him through the street.

He walked aimlessly until suddenly he realized that she was no longer holding his hand.

"What's the matter Raine," Naruto asked.

Sasuke turned to look at Raine. The older girl had her silvery eyebrows scrunched in worry and a frown upon her face. Sending a questioning glance to Naruto, the pair followed Raine's gaze to a narrow alleyway. Surprisingly enough, a small, dirty little girl sat there with her forehead resting on her knees which were propped up to her chest.

"Hey isn't that," Naruto began but Raine had already ran to the girls side.

Sasuke huffed realizing that he may have just become friends with a very meddlesome and in turn troublesome person. He began walking to Raine and the little girl with Naruto at his side. They both knew exactly who this little girl was but what was she doing here? And looking like that as well.

"Are you alright," Raine asked holding her hand out.

Slowly the girl raised her head and between strands of messy, pale pink hair, dull emerald eyes fearfully glanced up at the trio.

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And we're finished with this chapter! This one took awhile because I was a bit unsure of how I wanted to portray Sasuke. I wanted him to be more "normal" and expressive but at the same time I didn't want to entirely do away with his quiet mannerism. I've also decided that Sasuke will be keen (or anal) on manners as I imagine that his mother and father would have drilled that into him. Just a little quirk to his personality like Kakashi and his book. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'm pretty sure that you can guess in whose perspective the next chapter will be in so look forward to it. Once again reviews are highly appreciated but not required. Ciao ^.^

-Butterfly


	4. Chapter 4

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

Hey everyone... First off I would like to thank **XT3100** and **Anon #2** for the review! It definitely gave me motivation to get this chapter out. Let me tell you this chapter took the life out of me. I've been working on it for hours until all of a suddenly my laptop died and over half of my progress was lost. At that point I rage quitted for a few days so that's why this is a little late. This was not as dramatic as I originally intended for it to be but I just wanted to finish the damn introductions so that I could get to the fun ninja stuff. By the way for anyone wondering there will be some romance! I'm a girl I like romance but I don't plan on making it main focus. Forgive me for any grammar and spelling mistakes, I honestly don't want to have to read this chapter for the hundredth time. I'll edit the mistakes out tomorrow...or something. That is all. -Butterfly

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**Emerald Eyes**

Sakura tensed as she heard someone speak from in front of her. Ill thoughts swarmed her head as she tried to understand what might be happening.

"They couldn't have been back already could they? It's only been a little less than an hour. Was it Ino-chan? No, the girl was with her family. Wasn't one round of being beat up enough? Can't they just leave me alone? Please leave me alone? Please. Maybe if I don't respond for a bit they'll go away... Or they'll beat me worse."

Resigning to her "impending fate", Sakura slowly and slightly lifted her head so that only her eyes could be seen. However the sight before her was not at all what she had expected. It was neither her antagonists or her usual savior Ino.

Before her stood a slightly older, foreign girl with the whitest hair she'd ever seen and two boys that looked oddly familiar. Were they from the Academy?

"Hey you there? You okay," the foreign girl in the middle asked with an arm outstretched.

Hesitantly, Sakura moved her arm so that her hand ghosted on top of the older females. Gently, the older girl grabbed Sakura's hand and helped pull Sakura to her feet. The girl then began to brush dirt off of Sakura's cerise shirt that had her signature white circle printed on the front whilst Sakura straightened her pleated white skirt.

"Thank you," Sakura quickly murmured forcing herself to try to look the older girl in the eye. The girl responded with a quick "no problem" and a bright smile.

"Hey, you're Sakura-chan right? Are you all right Sakura-chan," the boy on the left asked.

Sakura eyed the boy, taking in his blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and whisker features. She knew this boy. This was the little boy that she had always seen by himself in the class. The kid that was always getting into trouble because of his pranks. The kid her parents always looked at wearily. The kid she was supposed to stay away from.

"Naruto-kun?"

Naruto smiled brightly at being recognized. "Yup!"

"Who did this to you," A quiet voice to the right asked.

Sakura eyes quickly darted to the other boy a took in his features. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, this was the boy was the one all the girls were after. The one Ino was head over heels in love with.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Un," Sasuke replied with what seemed to be a slight, reassuring smile. Although Sakura couldn't be too sure seeing that it disappeared as fast as it came.

"Well," Naruto coaxed exasperated. "Are you okay? What happened? Who did this to you? What's going on?"

"Naruto-chan," The older girl called dragging out the -chan much to Naruto's displeasure. "Give her some time to answer, okay?"

Naruto sent a quick glare to the girl and began to pout but, nevertheless he waited calmly for Sakura to answer.

"I-um well... They-um well... It's nothing really, don't worry about it," Sakura muttered only to receive disapproving stares for the trio before her. "It's really nothing seriously. Happens all the time. I'm used to-"

"Happens all the time?" The older girl asked once in a voice now laced in venom.

"Um..."

"What happens all the time?" Naruto asked in the same voice.

"Uh..."

"Sakura," Sasuke threatened.

"Okay okay I'll tell you," Sakura squeaked in defeat. "Can we at least go somewhere quiet, I'm kinda tired of being in this cramped alleyway and my head really hurts."

"Sure, I'm Raine Hoshino by the way," the older girl introduced with a small smile.

Sakura gave a small smile herself. "Sakura Haruno."

"Hm...Where should we go?" Naruto asked, rubbing his chin.

After a few minutes of silence a soft sigh of defeat came from Sasuke. "Follow me."

Raine, Naruto, and Sakura nodded their heads and began to carefully follow Sasuke, trying their best to maneuver through the throngs of people. Through out the process both Naruto and Sakura began to get lost in the crowd. This then led to Sasuke holding Sakura's hand, Naruto holding Sakura's other hand, and Raine holding Naruto's hand.

The foursome travelled with their hands linked for a good 20 minutes until they reached a clearing with a large stone in the center. Sasuke released Sakura's hand and began walking towards the stone only to stop a few feet before. He sat down so that his knees were propped up and leaned back against his palms.

Following suit, the remaining trio sat down so that made a diamond formation and began to relax. Naruto opted to lay flat on his stomach whilst Rain choose to lay on her back before curling into somewhat of a fetal position on her side. Sakura, wearing a short skirt and all, opted to siting with her legs swept to the side.

"So, are you going to answer us," Raine asked quietly as she adjusted her head to get a better look at Sakura.

"Well... there's not much to say. A few girls bully me everyday," Sakura stated picking at a spot of grass.

"Why?" Naruto asked with an obvious tone of distaste.

"I don't know maybe because I look weird and no one likes me," Sakura once again stated as more and more strands of grass were uprooted.

"I don't think you look weird if anything I think you're pretty and if it counts I like you and I'm sure your parents like you too," Raine carefully spoke.

"Yeah! You're super pretty! And I like you too! A lot," Naruto agreed as he sat himself up and crossed his legs.

The air tensed as Sakura stopped her assault on the grass around her. Sakura's eyes stayed glue to the ground as she angrily hissed, "You're lying!"

"My foreheads huge. My eyes are huge and my hairs a weird color. How can that be pretty?"

"AND," Sakura yelled sending an icy glare to Raine.

"My parents abandoned me. So, how can you like me if not even my parent's liked me?"

Sakura heard a loud sigh and soon enough felt herself being embraced.

"How is it that I've met three orphans all in one day? Do orphans just attract more orphans?" Raine mused as a sad smile graced her face.

"What?" Sakura asked as she began to struggle against the older girl.

Raine merely began to hug the younger girl closer to her before softly speaking. "My paren't didn't want me either. I was sold before I escaped and met the gypsies."

"Hn. I knew there was something with you," Sasuke murmured as he hugged both Sakura and Raine.

"Hey! We're all orphans! We can be the orphans crew or the orphans family," Naruto yelled as he tackled the three of them to the ground in a big bear hug.

Sakura gasped at the impact unsure of what was going on. All she knew was that these people were weird.

"Um Naruto, I was kinda in the middle of my heart to heart with Sakura," Raine stated from underneath everyone.

"Why did I come with these people?" Sasuke lamented from his uncomfortable position.

"Oh yeah," Naruto realized as he released everyone and sat up. The rest of the group followed, the last being Raine since she was at the very bottom of the pile.

"Anyways who gives a crap about your parents? They don't deserve you and you're unusual features make you pretty and unique so don't worry about it, alright?" Naruto lectured with his trademark grin.

"Well that's anticlimactic," Sasuke murmured with a smirk.

"I guess that'll do," Raine sighed as she shook her head.

Sakura simply donned a confused expression as she tried to understand the events that had just transpired.

"Have I just been inducted into some strange help group," Sakura unconsciously asked. She then gasped as she realized what she said only to see a giggling Raine and a laughing Naruto.

"The moment that dang gypsy saw you was the moment that you were going to be inducted whether you knew it or not," Sasuke sighed closing his eyes. "They got me the same way except I more or less walked into a trap," Sasuke smirked.

"Hey! It's ex-gypsy to you. I'm going to be a world class ninja, so you know," Raine huffed.

"Oh yeah! I forgot to ask are you going to be joining The Academy," Naruto yelled in excitement.

"Nah I took some test and passed so I'm a genin sucker," Raine laughed as she stuck her tongue out at Naruto.

"Where's your forehead protector," Sakura asked, deciding to just forget everything and go with the flow. There was no point in trying to get upset with people who were just about, in same boat as she.

"Ah, I'm getting it tomorrow from the Hokage."

"Where ya gonna live," Naruto asked curiously.

"Haven't decided yet. Where do you guys live?"

"Orphanage," all three of them recited before looking at each other incredulously.

"I've never seen you guys there but then again I only sleep there," Sakura began.

"I've only been there for a week but I stay away for as long as possible," Sasuke replied.

"I've lived there forever but I hate it so I just go play pranks around the village," Naruto answered nonchalantly.

Raine sweat dropped.

"Well since you all hate it there why don't we all get a house together," Raine offered.

"How?" they asked in unison.

"We bother the Hokage until he says yes. Duh."

"Sounds good to me," Naruto agreed.

"Sounds better than the orphanage," Sakura also agreed.

Sasuke sighed. He was doing a lot of that lately. "As long as I don't share a room with the idiot over there."

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Introductions are done banzai! I'm gonna be real here and tell you that I've made it very dialogue heavy because I got lazy. I also made it seem like Sakura not having parents was unimportant which I had no intention of doing originally. It was going to be very dramatic and our dear Sasuke was the one that was going to give an impressive heart to heart speech with Raine and Naruto as back up but... that was all lost in "The-Great-Laptop-Dying-Because-I-Forgot-To-Plug-I t-In-Tragedy". Hope you enjoyed it nevertheless. If not... I promise the next one will be better because you know timeskips are awesome. Anyways reviews are appreciated but not required! Have a nice day or night.

-Butterfly


	5. Chapter 5

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

Hello everyone! Let me start with the usual. Thank you** coolest2 **for the review! I'm pumping them out as fast I can buddy! ^^ Hopefully this chapter will satisfy your needs for now. This one's particularly long (7000+ words!) but, I like it so I hope you do too! BTW I've included character descriptions at the bottom to help you visualize everyone because I've decided to change their wardrobe a bit. Feel free to read that first if you wish.

-Butterfly

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**Forehead Protectors, a Demon, and Icha Icha Paradise.**

"Hokage-sama!"

Hizuren Sarutobi sighed as he put down his paintbrush. "I had one stroke left," He thought to himself.

"What is it? Did Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura cause trouble again?"

"Yes! Those damn punks are desecrating the Hokage monument! And this time with paint!"

Hizuren Sarutobi sighed again. This always happened when she was away.

.

.

.

"You brats!"

"Stop doing this everyday!"

"You'll pay for that!"

"Sasuke you need to make a handle bar mustache," a feminine voice chided.

"Really? I was thinking a Dali would look good," Sasuke contemplated.

"No, no you're both wrong. Sarutobi gramps has got to have a thick Fu Manchu," a loud voice argued.

Sakura laughed while Sasuke put on a wide grin.

"Fu Manchu it is," Sasuke agreed as he began painting on the facial hair.

_ Meanwhile down below..._

"Hey! Don't ignore us!"

"Stop!"

"Geez... What have those idiots done now?" Sarutobi asked as he made his way through the crowd.

"Sandaime Hokage-sama!" a familiar voice yelled.

"Oh! Iruka."

"Sandaime Hokage-sama I'm very sorry for this," Iruka apologized as he bowed profusely.

Iruka placed his arms behind his back before inhaling a large breath of air.

"What the hell are you all doing during class time? Get down here you morons!"

_From above..._

"Crap it's Iruka-sensei," Naruto yelled.

"Shit," Sasuke blurted in surprised.

"Let's make a break for it," Sakura decided calmly.

The boys nodded and the trio quickly disappeared from sight.

"Come back here," Iruka and several other chunin yelled before chasing after the three miscreants.

Sarutobi sighed and looked to the Hokage statues only to sigh once again. What a mess.

"Well, well, well," a feminine voice spoke.

Sarutobi turned to see a squad of ANBU. Three of the ANBU nodded before disappearing leaving only the captain. The captain was about 165 cm in height and had her hair pulled into a long braid that reached just before her bottom. She wore standard ANBU attire, had a katana hanging from each hip, and wore a blue and silver dragon mask.

"I must say, you look great with Fu Manchu Hokage-sama," the girl teased.

Sarutobi sighed once again. He was getting too old for all this Hokage nonsense and no one respected their elders like they used too. Why couldn't he just live a life in peace?

"Seiryuu-taichou Mission report."

.

.

.

"Naruto...Sasuke...Sakura," Iruka spat. "Do you know what tomorrow is?"

"The graduation exam, duh," Sasuke replied from his spot on the floor. Usually he wouldn't be so blunt with his answers but being tied to Naruto and Sakura as they were forced to sit on the floor infront of all their classmates warranted a haughty attitude.

"Oh so you knew! Then you obviously know that this isn't the time to be causing trouble you idiots," Iruka hissed, tempted to his smack all three of them upside the head.

"Tch, whatever," Naruto sassed, once he had given up fighting against his restraints.

A vein popped from Iruka's head. He then took in a deep breath.

"Time for a 'Henge no Jutsu' test! Everyone line up! Transform PERFECTLY into me. And you," Iruka bellowed, pointing a spiteful finger at Sakura, "get to go first."

The test went by quickly and without a hitch for both Sakura and Sasuke since they had learned the jutsu years ago, courtsy of Raine.

"Next up, Naruto Uzumaki."

Although Sasuke and Sakura had easily mastered the technique thanks to Raine, Naruto happened to be completely unable to perform the technique no matter how many times Raine had tried to drilll it into his head. He just couldn't channel his chakra correctly for the technique.

Naruto turned his head towards Sasuke and sent him a mischievous grin and in turn Sasuke groaned and moved behind Sakura to cover her eyes.

"Henge!"

After that all hell broke loose as Iruka flew back leaving twin streams of blood and Naruto laughed explaining something about a 'sexy no jutsu'.

.

.

.

"Did you just have to use that?" Sakura complained as she scrubbed at some red paint.

"Now Iruka won't even help us clean," Sasuke grumbled as he removed the last bit of the Fu Manchu. It was quite a shame really. The Fu Manchu was great.

"Well, we got to see Iruka make a fool of himself in front of the entire class. That's something right?" Naruto offered.

Sasuke and Sakura grinned. "Very true."

"Hey you three," Iruka called from above the forth Hokage's head.

"If you guys hurry up I'll treat you all to Ramen!"

And with that the trio became professional cleaners.

.

.

.

"So care to tell my why you all did that to the Hokage statues?" Iruka asked as he ate.

"It's simple really," Sasuke began after thanking Iruka for paying for the Ramen.

"The Hokage is the strongest ninja in the village right?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah?"

"Well we plan on becoming stronger than all of them and making everyone acknowledge our strength," Naruto continued flashing a wide grin.

"See, simple," Sasuke finished with his trademarked smirk on his face.

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.

.

"Naruto where are you going," Sakura questioned from her spot on the couch. Sasuke in turn looked up from the jutsu scroll he had been reading.

"Mizuki-sensei told me about this scroll with high level jutsus in it. He said that if I can do one I can be a genin like you and Sasuke," Naruto answered as he continued to put on his ninja sandals.

"So...where are we going?" Sakura asked as she began sliding on her own ninja sandals.

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.

.

*Huff huff*

*Huff huff*

"I can't get it at all," Sakura declared as she flopped to the ground.

"Tch. Stupid move," Sasuke muttered, flopping down next to Sakura.

"Heh, heh, heh, heh. You'll have to call me Naruto The Genius now," Naruto boasted as he fell beside his "siblings".

"I found you three!"

The trio looked up to see a shaking and very angry Iruka.

"Yo Iruka," Naruto greeted excitedly from his place on the ground. "I did it! I learned one of the jutsus! Not even Sasuke or Sakura could learn it! Now you'll let me graduate right?"

Iruka gave a disturbed expression.

"Naruto! Who told you that?"

Sasuke and Sakura gave Iruka an odd look before sending confused glances to Naruto, who also wore a confused expression. Suddenly, a barrage of kunai came flying at the group. Sasuke quickly grabbed Sakura's arm as he pulled them out of harms way. Iruka quickly moved so that he covered Naruto and was stabbed by four kunai.

"Iruka sensei!" Naruto screamed as he watched a trail of blood flow from Iruka's lips. What was going on?

"Naruto... Give me the scroll."

The foursome looked up to see Mizuki, fully equipped with weapons, and standing on a branch.

"Don't do it Naruto! That's a dangerous scroll with forbidden jutsus. Mizuki has tricked you into getting the scroll for him," Iruka warned.

Naruto widened his eyes, what?

"Hmph. Are you sure you wanna listen to Iruka even though he's been hiding something from you? Lied to you? I'll tell you our village's secret that no one's allowed to tell you," Mizuki sneered with a maniacal smile.

"Stop it," Iruka shouted as he slowly tried to straighten himself.

"12 years ago when the Kyuubi rampaged the village the fourth Hokage that you admire oh so much sealed him in a newly born infant. That infant is you! You're the nine tailed demon fox who killed Iruka's parents and destroyed the village. That's why everyone hates you, including Iruka!"

Naruto stayed frozen in shock as he processed this information. He was what? Everyone hate him hated him because of what? Wait! Sasuke and Sakura are here. Were they going to hate him now too? He felt like his head was splitting. This had to be some bad dream.

Suddenly Naruto heard the sound of kunai flying through the air. Naruto looked up to see two lines of blood that were beginning to leak, on Mizuki-sensei's face.

"Shut up," Sakura snarled.

"Or we'll kill you," Sasuke threatened.

Mizuki glared at the pair. He hadn't expect to see the damn demon's surrogate family.

"Mizuki."

Naruto looked to see that Iruka was now standing up straight despite the fact that he had four kunai embedded into his back, four kunai that had meant to be embedded in his own.

"I do hate the Kyuubi," Iruka admitted. "But not Naruto. Naruto is not the Kyuubi. He is a member of The Hidden Leaf Village. He is Naruto Uzumaki, the troublemaker and one of my excellent students."

Sakura and Sasuke smiled at this and then moved to flank Naruto on each side.

"Get up Naruto," Sakura commanded as she extended her hand.

"We've got some ass to kick," Sasuke declared extending his own hand.

Naruto stared, feeling stupid for thinking that the two might have hated or even feared him now that they had all found out that he had a demon sealed in him. He then slapped his hands to his face before grinning. These two were his family, there was no need for worry. Naruto grabbed each hand as they pulled him up. The trio then turned to glare at Mizuki, positioning themselves for battle.

"Let's do this," Naruto roared. "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

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"Starting today, all of you are real shinobi," Iruka began. "But you are still genin. The hard journey that lies ahead has just started. Now you will soon get missions to help the village so today we will create the three-man teams and each team will have a jounin-sensei. You will follow your sensei's instructions in order to successfully complete your missions. Okay Team 1 is..."

"Hey," Naruto whispered. "Do you think that maybe we'll get Raine-nee as our jounin instructor?"

Sakura grimaced. "I think that we'd actually die while training rather than out in the field if we had Nee-chan as an instructor. Besides isn't she ANBU now?"

"Huh? When did that happen?" Naruto asked, confused.

Sasuke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I swear I told you this already but, remember the day I went searching through Nee-san's room for ninjutsu and genjutsu scrolls?"

Naruto nodded his head.

"Well I found a ANBU mask."

"Woah! No way," Naruto exclaimed in awe. "What's it look like? Is it an animal mask?"

Sasuke grinned. "Blue and silver dragon mask. Looks super cool."

"Sasuke! Sakura! Naruto!" Iruka shouted gaining the trios attention.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

Sakura shook her head no, Sasuke remained expressionless, and Naruto gave a loud "NOPE!"

Iruka's eye twitched. He looked back down at his paper and sighed loudly. He knew that this was going to happen but he couldn't believe that the Hokage had actually done this to the village.

"Team 7- Naruto Uzumaki. Sakura Haruno. Sasuke Uchiha," Iruka grunted unhappily.

There was a loud protest of "No! Sasuke-sama." but the three who had their names called payed no mind to it whatsoever. They grinned at each other happily. They would have it no other way.

.

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.

"Why is our Team 7-sensei so damn late!"

"Naruto, just sit down or something dammit. Watching you pace around is making me tired," Sakura commanded. Sakura was irritated. They had been waiting for a good 3 hours now, the sun was beginning to set, and all the teachers and students had already left. Where the hell was this stupid jounin?

Naruto rolled his eyes until they landed on the dirty old chalkboard eraser.

"Heh. heh. heh. heh.," Naruto giggled as he precariously placed it above the door frame.

Sasuke watched Naruto and rolled his own eyes.

"Weak, you need to put a water bucket up there," Sasuke stated in a matter-of-fact manner. He then proceeded to hand Naruto a bucket of water that was conveniently in the room.

"Good idea!"

Sakura watched with slight amusement from her seat. "This would be so much more fun if we had some paint on us. Or ink."

Naruto and Sasuke nodded their heads in mock-solemn agreement.

"Oh! I just had another idea but, this might be mean," Sakura announced.

The duo quickly eyed each other and grinned evilly. In a matter of seconds the two boys flanked Sakura from each side.

"Oh, please do tell oh wise Sakura," Naruto requested.

Sakura snorted but, nevertheless joined the duo with her own evil grin.

"Well... Sasuke happens to know a fire jutsu," Sakura hinted raising an eyebrow suggestively.

"Oh ho ho ho!" Naruto mused.

Sasuke's grin merely widened. "That's right you were always the smart one weren't you Sakura," Sasuke complimented.

Sasuke began to move to retrieve the bucket so that he could heat the water when suddenly they heard the door begin to slide. The mischievous trio watched intently as the door opened completely and the bucket of water fell... all over their jounin-sensei.

Naruto laughed immediately and loudly whilst Sakura giggled and Sasuke tried his best not to roll on the floor with laughter along with Naruto.

"Hmm... How can I say this?" The man drawled. "My first impression is... I don't like you guys."

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Kakashi ruffled the towel through his hair one last time before finally sitting down on the railing of the roof.

"Well, let's begin with introducing yourselves."

"Whadya wanna know?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke's eye twitched. "Naruto...Whadya is not a word." Naruto glared.

Kakashi cleared his throat indicating that he was going to speak once again. "How about your name, age, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future and things like that?"

"Hey Hey, why don't you introduce yourself to us first?" Naruto suggest.

"Yeah, you look kinda suspicious," Sakura added.

Sasuke silently nodded his head in agreement with both Naruto and Sakura. Having one eye showing and wearing a mask was extremely suspicious looking. Not only that his hair was defying gravity. How was he doing that? Was he using gel? Sasuke eyeballed the silver hair and noticed that it moved with the wind. No gel...

"Oh...me? Well, my name is Kakashi Hatake... I'm older than you all. I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes... Dreams for the future...hmm... And I have lots of hobbies.."

The three genin sweat-dropped.

"So... all he told us is his name?" Sakura asked in slight disbelief.

"...Should we run for it?" Naruto wondered.

"Maybe..." Sasuke whispered in response.

Kakashi felt his eyes droop. Did they know that he could totally hear them?

"Now it's your turn, let's start on the right. Blondie?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes slightly peeved at the nickname before falling back into his enthused personality.

"Alright! My name's Naruto Uzumaki. I'm 12 but I'll be 13 soon! What I like is ramen, Sasuke, Sakura, and Raine-nee. I also like when Raine-nee is home and cooks or when either she or Iruka-sensei buys me ramen. I also like playing pranks on people. What I dislike is the three minutes for ramen to cook, when Raine-nee's on week-long missions, when Sakura hits me, when Sasuke's being an ass, and when I get caught pranking. My dream is to surpass the Hokages and then become Hokage and have all the people of this village acknowledge my existence! And my hobby is pranking! And training too I guess."

Kakashi felt himself grow tired. Ramen, pranking, and becoming Hokage, simple enough.

"Next."

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I'm 13. I guess I like Nee-san, Sakura, and maybe Naruto. As for dislikes, I dislike a lot of especially people without manners, they disgust me. As for dreams, I'd say I don't have them. I have an ambition to resurrect my clan and become the strongest Uchiha there ever was. I plan on torturing a certain man as well. As for hobbies training and messing with people."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. The Uchiha was just as he thought minus the manners fixation and the pranking. Two pranksters in the group?

"Ok... and lastly the girl."

Kakashi watched as the girl rolled her eyes. That was a bad sign.

"My name's Sakura Haruno. I'm 13 although I'm younger than Sasuke. I like Nee-chan, Sasuke, and Naruto. I also like spicy food. I dislike sexist jerks and idiots. My dream for the future is to become strong enough that I can protect everyone I love and support Naruto when he's Hokage and all. My hobby is pranking, training, and reading medical and genjutsu scrolls. But I guess that's training."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. That was new. This girl was focused and obviously hardworking and unlike most girls her age whom were all usually more intrested in boys, interesting. However...another pranker? Was he going to have issues?

There was another fact that stood out as well. They each spoke about this Nee-chan or Nee-san or Raine-nee?

"Who's this onee-san you all keep talking about?" Kakashi questioned. He was honestly curious and the name Raine sounded somewhat familiar.

"Raine-nee's our sister. What else is there to know?" Naruto answered. Sakura and Sasuke just nodded their heads in agreement.

Kakashi obviously wouldn't be getting answer's today.

"Anyway, first thing we're going to do together is some survival training," Kakashi announced.

"Survival training?"

"Yes. he. he. he. he."

The trio looked at each other worriedly.

"We should make a break for it and hope Nee-sans home," Sasuke whispered.

"As I was saying," Kakashi restarted. "Survival training. Of the twenty-seven graduates only nine of them will be chose to become genin and the rest will be sent back to the Academy. This training is a very difficult exam with a failure rate of over 66%."

Sasuke glared at the jounin and Naruto stared wide-eyed, his mouth ready to catch flies. Naruto was about to protest when Sakura spoke.

"So... You all are weeding out the weaker shinobi so that they don't get hurt out in the real world?"

Kakashi nodded his head. This girl was smart.

Sakura smiled brightly,"Good thing we're not weak! Right boys?"

"The boys" snorted but, donned equally cocky smiles on their faces.

"Anyway, tomorrow you have to show your real skills on the training ground. Bring all the shinobi tools you have. Oh... and skip breakfast. You might throw up." Kakashi warned. "Here are the papers and don't be late." And with that Kakashi disappeared.

The trio climbed down the stairs as they exited the building and made their way home in contemplative silence.

"You think Raine-nee will be home to train us a bit," Naruto wondered aloud.

"I hope so," Sasuke answered.

"Should we train? Or should we rest?" Sakura questioned.

"Let's still train but, less than usual so that we can sleep more," Sasuke decided just in time as they reached their one story home.

Their house wasn't the largest house by any means but it was comfortable, spacious, and they had a good amount of acreage to expand the house if they wanted. It was a traditional 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home with an open kitchen and dining area. The floor throughout the house was either a light birchwood or tatami. The living room was quite large so it was used as their living room and training area. The traning area included a tatami mat that indicated a sparring ring, a hanging "enemy shinobi" Naruto had crafted, and 7 dart boards for practicing your aim. The house also, included a small room that they used as a library since it was too small to be a bedroom. Sakura and Raine had their own bedrooms and shared a restroom in between their rooms. Ironically, Sasuke and Naruto shared a bedroom, even though Sasuke's condition for living with the group of orphans was that he was aloud his own bedroom. The boys bedroom was quite large however, and Naruto's side of the room was clearly separated from Sasuke's side by a ricepaper room divider the boys had bought after living together for a year. The boys also shared the "public" restroom located at the end of the hall.

After a good three hours of training outdoors the group decided to shower and prepare for dinner.

Naruto sniffed the air and drooled. "Yo Sakura we having fish tonight?"

Sasuke's ears perked at this. Fish?

"It's just something quick but yeah. I made grilled sea bass donburi," Sakura stated as she set down the plate of fish. Sasuke grabbed three bowls and filled them with white rice and Naruto grabbed the chopsticks. After setting the table the three ate quickly as they discussed their strange sensei and their plan of action for tomorrow.

"I think we should bring those walk-e-talkies Raine-nee gave us last year."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Sasuke conceded.

"What about breakfast?" Sakura asked.

"I say we do it and if we up chuck we up chuck," Naruto offered.

"I agree," Sasuke conceded once again before yawning quietly.

Sakura yawned as well and motioned for the boys to help her clean up. After a few minutes the threesome cleaned up the dinner and bade each other goodnight.

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.

.

Sakura open her eyes as light filtered in from her window. She could hear the sounds of birds singing and smelled the delicious aroma of butter and pancakes in the air. Sakura blinked. Butter? Pancakes? Sakura ran to the restroom and splashed water on her face and quickly dried her face off throwing the towel somewhere near the sink. She then ran back out and slid open the door to her room back with a loud "clack". Not wasting time, she made a mad dash for the kitchen, almost tripping in the process.

Standing in front of the stove was a familiar mop of snow-white.

"Raine," Sakura greeted as she ran up to the older girl, threw her arms around her and buried the side of her face against her soft wavy hair.

Raine let out a soft squeak as she plated another pancake. She then turned off the stove top down and turned around to give Sakura a proper hug.

"Hey kiddo," Raine whispered tiredly. "You should go wake up Sasuke and Naruto while I finish up breakfast."

Sakura nodded quickly and turned on her heel towards the boy's room. She slid the door open with another loud "clack" and looked to see that the boys had thankfully forgotten to unravel the room divider, making it easier for going from one side to the other.

"Wake up," she cheered earning a loud moan from Naruto as he pulled his pillow over his head and a grunt of disapproval from Sasuke whom opted to raise the covers over his head. Sakura rolled her eyes. She wasn't that much of a morning person herself but, Naruto and Sasuke had her beat. Deciding to go with the easier of the two options, Sakura skipped to Sasuke's bed and ripped the sheets off.

Sasuke didn't move.

"Sakura."

"Yes," she sang sweetly.

"Go the hell away."

Sakura frowned as Sasuke slid the upper half of his body off the bed and lazily reached for his sheet and resumed his previous position from before Sakura's disturbance. Sasuke was not having it this morning.

Turning on her heels, Sakura jumped on to Naruto's bed and landed right on his midsection inducing a loud grunt of disapproval.

"Sakura," Naruto whined, drawing out the "a". Feeling compliant this morning, Naruto pulled the pillow off his head and half sat up, placing his hands behind him to support his body. He glanced at the clock and groaned.

"Sakura it's 6am! We've got like two whole hours before we're suppose to arrive. Why are you waking us up?"

Sakura ignored his complaint and grabbed Naruto's pillow and promptly threw it at the tuft of ebony that was across the room.

"Sasuke! Wake up," Sakura yelled again.

Sasuke shot up and sent his best ice-cold glare that he could manage while half asleep. "I don't need two hours to get ready. I'm not a girl," He sneered.

Sakura raised her eyebrows at the remark. "Do you guys seriously not smell what's coming from the kitchen?"

Naruto and Sasuke sniffed the air.

"Bacon, eggs, toast," Naruto began reciting.

"Pancakes and sausage," Sasuke finished.

Realizing the situation, Naruto and Sasuke shot up and raced to their shared restroom, leaving Sakura comically dumped on the floor courtesy of Naruto of course.

Grumbling, Sakura got up and moved towards the kitchen-dining area. Raine was setting down utensils.

"They coming?"

Sakura sat down at her usual spot on the bench and grabbed her fork so that she could dig into her pancakes. Easily cutting through the pancake, she stabbed the triangle piece and shoved it in her mouth savoring the sweet taste of maple syrup. "Mmmmhmm."

Just as she answered she heard the loud sound of feet before an even louder "Raine-nee!" filled the air.

Naruto ran up to the older girl and spun her around in a bear hug which was quite a task seeing that she was over 10 centimeters taller than him. After Naruto put the older girl down, Sasuke gave the girl a gentle hug and murmured something about being away for too long which earned a smile from the girl.

The trio then made their way to the informal dining table where Naruto immediately began to devour his food.

"I missed you guys," Raine stated nonchalantly.

"You were suppose to only be gone for a month and it's been two! You're late by an whole extra month. What happened?" Sasuke asked before he took a bite of his sausage.

Raine sighed wearily as she ran her hand through her white bangs. "The information we were given was wrong so we had to spend more time gathering information instead of just doing the mission. Not to mention the ferry to Kiri was down for maintenance for a week and then when we did get back the client was a day a way and I had to go track him down. Seriously, worst mission to be captain of ever."

"You're an ANBU captain?! No fair!" Naruto asked enviously.

"Yup captain to squa- hey wait... How did you know I was in ANBU?"

"Done! I'll wash my dishes after I shower," Sakura announced quickly.

"Me too," Sasuke followed.

The two quickly disappeared.

"Naruto," Raine threatened.

"Sasuke was looking for scrolls and found your dragon mask," Naruto tattled.

Raine sighed again as she cleared the plates and decided that she would just wash everything herself.

After a few minutes of washing the dishes and Naruto cleaning the table, Raine spoke again. "So what are you monkeys doing today?"

Naruto's eye twitched. "We're not monkeys!"

Raine scoffed.

"And we've got to meet up with our weird jounin-sensei to pass some stupid survival test so we can for real be genin."

"Oh! Really? You guys have a plan?"

Naruto grinned, "Hell yeah!"

"So who's your sensei?"

Naruto grimaced. "He's weird! Super suspicious! He wears a mask and covers his eye with his forehead protector."

"Not to mention his hair makes no sense," Sasuke added. "Shower's open."

"Took long enough," Naruto commented before making his way to the shower.

"Wow look at that forehead protector. My kids are all grown up. I'm so proud," Raine teased as she wiped fake tears.

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"His hair makes no sense?" Raine repeated.

"Yeah it's spikey and sticks up and goes to the side like this," Sasuke explained as he mimicked Kakashi's hair with his hands.

"Weird. What's his name?"

"Kakashi Hatake."

Raine stopped washing the dishes and thought for a moment. Why did that sound familiar?

"What you doing today?" Sasuke asked as he checked his pouch, making sure everything he wanted was in there.

"Napping for as long as I can," Raine purred happily. "Where are you guys meeting at?" she added

"The third training grounds," Sakura answered as she walked into the room.

"The one where the cenotaph is located? Wow, that's nostalgic," Raine commented.

"Indeed," Sasuke agreed.

"Hey Raine-nee do you have any tips for kicking a jounin's ass?" Naruto asked as he now came in the room and shook the water out of his hair.

"Tips eh?" Raine pondered.

"Hold crap it's already 7:45! If we're gonna be late," Sakura yelled as she slid on her black sandals.

The trio began to run out the door when Raine spoke.

"A single tree makes no forest; one string makes no music."

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.

"Naruto did you set it up?" Sakura asked.

"Finished!"

"Sasuke?"

"Done."

"Okay remember the plan and keep your walk-e-talkie hidden and remember bird call before you use it. Understood?" Sakura reminded.

"Got it," the two boys replied in unison.

"We finished just in time too," Sasuke commented as he glanced past Sakura.

"Hey guys, Good morning!"

"You're late," the threesome retorted.

"Now, now. Here are two bells. Your mission today is to take these from me before noon. Those who don't get a bell by noon, get no lunch," Kakashi began.

"That's why he told us no to eat," Naruto whispered.

"You only have to get one bell. There are only two, so one of you will definitely be tied to the stump. And... The person who doesn't take a bell fails and will be sent back to the Academy. So be ready to come at me with killing intent, understood?"

The three nodded.

"Begin!"

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.

"Hmm, it seems that they're all hidden," Kakashi thought to himself.

"Come here and fight me," Naruto yelled with his arms crossed.

"Uhm... You're a little bit off..."

"The only thing that's a bit off is your hair cut," Naruto retorted as he ran towards Kakashi.

Kakashi sighed and reached for...

.

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.

"The only thing that's off is your haircut!"

Sasuke snickered. He would have to compliment Naruto on that later.

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.

"What's he reaching for?" Sakura wondered.

Sakura watched as he pulled something orange out of his back pocket.

"A book?"

She looked at the cover and made a disgusted face.

"That freaking p-"

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.

.

"What's with the book?"

Kakashi flipped through the pages searching for the spot he had left last left off at. "I just want to know what happens next but don't worry, it won't make a difference against you guys." He flip a few more pages until he found it, perfect.

Kakashi began to read as he blocked Naruto's punch and ducked out of the way of his kick. Feeling annoyed Kakashi decided to play a trick. Kakashi slid behind Naruto causing him to punch the air.

"A shinobi isn't suppose to get caught from behind...idiot."

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Sakura's eyes widened. That was a tiger seal! She cursed mentally unsure if she should command Naruto to pull back or continue.

Sakura watched as her sensei's lone eye gleamed with mischief. Hold on... mischief?

"Hidden leaf ancient taijustsu supreme technique, 1000 years of pain!"

A vein popped from Sakura's head. Seriously?

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Naruto sank to the bottom of the river unhappily. The plan that they had come up with was good but after that there was no way he was gonna be the guinea pig anymore.

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Kakashi allowed the two shurikens to spin around on his fingers before placing them in his own pouch. Might as well! He heard the sounds of water and watched 8 Naruto's fly at him. Impressive.

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Sasuke heard the sound of a bird and reached for his walk-e-talkie. He pressed the plastic button and placed the speaker next to his ear.

"Guys," came a tired voice.

"I'm outta the area. Now's the time to start the plan while he's distracted by the bunshin."

"We didn't get enough information on him though," Sasuke reminded.

Naruto moaned. "No way I'm being guinea pig again. Did you see what he did to my ass?"

"Naruto," came a feminine voice.

"What Sakura?"

"Rejoin your clones and pretend to be confused. Kakashi's setting this trap and I want you to trigger it. It's right next to 'A'."

Sasuke turned his head just in time to see that the Sakura was right.

"Woah! Wait who's gonna protect me from 'A' then?" Naruto hissed.

"I'll get you idiot."

"And I'll heal you if you get burned no worries," Sakura reassured.

The was another moan. "Fine! Let's do this."

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.

Naruto joined his bunshins and pretended to get hit a few times before "remembering" that he could deactivate the jutsu. He then proceeded to look around as if looking for Kakashi until he spotted the bell.

"Hihihi, He must have been desperate to escape! He dropped a bell, hehehe," Naruto goaded.

As Naruto step forward he felt something at his feet and pretended to be surprised.

"What the hell is this?" Naruto yelled throwing in a few flailing motions to seem believable.

He then watched as Kakashi stepped forward and reach down to get the bell. Naruto made a shocked face as he continued his struggling act.

"Don't fall for such obvious traps, idiot," he heard Kakashi reprimand.

Naruto smiled. Suddenly he felt a body crash against his and heard a loud BOOM. Getting to his feet he ran with Sasuke behind a tree. The two boys did their best to mask their chakra and smiled. They did it.

A bush rustled slightly and Naruto felt his hand reach for a kunai however, he soon sighed in relief as Sakura appeared. "Any injuries?" she asked looking both boys over from head to toe. The boys shook their heads. "Alright then I'm gonna go check the hole and you guys back me up okay," Sakura commanded. The boys nodded their heads again.

Sakura walked cautiously to the hole, kunai in hand. The trap was a simple pitfall trap they had made. They had dug a huge hole in the ground and then covered it with a wooden plank and a thick layer of dirt and grass. Unlike common pitfall traps they made it so that stepping on it didn't trigger it. It was made so that the ground had to be broken a bit by an explosion for example, before you triggered it so that none of them, themselves would trigger it.

Sakura peered down to see Kakashi making a rat seal.

Leaves began to swirl around her but before they could finish Sakura formed the tiger seal and yelled "Kai!"

Sakura awoke just in time to see Kakashi about to push her into the hole and hear Naruto yell her name. Seeing no other option, Sakura performed several back handsprings letting a few kunai fly at Kakashi in the process. Soon enough, she felt Naruto and Sasuke at her sides.

"You alright?" Naruto asked as he positioned himself for battle.

"I'm fine. It was just a low leveled genjutsu."

"Well there goes that plan. What are we gonna do about him now?" Sasuke asked as he glared at Kakashi.

"Well, we can-," Sakura began only to be interrupted.

"What are you three doing?" Kakashi asked as he placed his book back into his pouch. It was nearing noon and Kakashi was just about to let them break for lunch when they had pulled that interesting pitfall stunt.

"You do know I can only let two of you guys pass. So why are all three of you working together?" Kakashi questioned coldly as if to scorn them. Truthfully, he was very happy that they were working together and so well.

"Cut the crap old man," Sakura shouted, completely annoyed. She hadn't liked the tone he was using at all. "Who cares if you only have two bells? We're a packaged deal here."

"Yeah! Did you really think that we were going to let you separate us?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"Oh so you're not going to follow your mission?" Kakashi asked mockingly.

Sasuke growled. "Who gives a crap about the so-called "mission"? My friends matter more to me than some stupid mission. And we're going to kick you ass and force you to pass us all," Sasuke promised. Sasuke looked at Naruto and nodded.

Sasuke began to run towards Kakashi making hand signs as he took in a breath of air. "Katon, Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Faintly behind him he could hear the sounds of Naruto yelling 'Kage bushin no jutsu' and Sakura's battlecry.

Kakashi smiled. Kakashi easily jumped out of the way and behind them. The kids immediately stopped and turned around, ready to charge once again. Kakashi gave a sigh and put his hands up and gave his eye smile.

"You guys pass."

Kakashi gave a small chuckle as he watched their angry faces change into confused faces.

"Excuse me could you say that again," the Uchiha asked.

"You pass. Those in the ninja would who break the rules are scum, that's true... but those who abandon their friends... are lower than scum."

Kakashi watched as the kids smiled.

"Geez this guy kinda sounds like a straight forward Raine-nee," Naruto observed as he fell sat down in relief.

"No kidding," Sasuke agreed.

Kakashi rose and eyebrow as he handed them their lunches.

"When we left, we asked our nee-chan for some advice before we left," Sakura began to explain. "And all she said was, a single tree makes no forest; one string makes no music."

* * *

It's over yay! This has been one long chapter but it's been fun since I have the manga pulled up so I can follow along and get some ideas here and there. For those who were wondering "A single tree makes no forest; one string makes no music" is a Chinese proverb about the importance of teamwork. I happen to really like proverbs and riddles so I plan to make my OC the same way. Next chapter is all on the Wave Country arc. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely looking forward to it since I happen to like Haku and Zabuza as characters and I don't want to have to kill them but, I have to since Team 7 needs to understand the harsh life of a ninja. Sigh. I can't wait until the chunin exams though. I'm gonna have a field day on that portion, teehee. Anyways, reviews are appreciated as always! Have a nice day!

-Butterfly

**Character Profiles**

Naruto Uzumaki

Age: 12 (almost 13)

Birthday: July 28th

Height: 153cm or 5ft

Appearance: Same orange pants that are slightly rolled up. Bandages on the right leg with a navy kunai holster. Same navy blue forehead protector across the forehead and navy blue ninja sandals. Black crew neck t-shirt. Orange, high collared vest with deep, navy blue pockets, large arm holes, and the red Uzumaki symbol on the back. The vest is unzipped so that the black crew neck shirt underneath is shown. His pouch is located on his front left.

Sasuke Uchiha

Age: 13

Birthday: Janurary 19th

Height: 158cm or 5ft 2in

Appearance: Same navy blue forehead protector and blue ninja sandals. Same white and blue cloth arm warmers. Wears a high neck, navy blue, sleeveless muscle tee that's almost skin-tight but not really. Wears grey, harem pants styled capris. (Basically their loose cloth capris that have a slightly thick band right after the knee that's tight while the rest of the capri is loose and slightly baggy looking." His left thigh is bandaged with a navy kunai holster and his pouch is located on his front right.

Sakura Haruno

Age: 13

Birthday: March 2nd

Height: 155 cm or 5ft 1in

Appearance: She wears a white sleeveless turtle neck sports bra. Over that is a red, slightly loose tank top with a white circle on the bottom left, the tank top stops at the bottom of her butt and has very tiny slits on each side. She wears black spandex shorts that stop a little before mid-thigh and white knee-high socks. She has her bandages and black kunai holster on her right thigh. She wears a tan utility belt around her waist and she has two tan pouches on her back. She has the red ribbon Ino gave her in her hair and a red forehead protector tied around her left bicep. At this point she still had long hair that goes to mid-back.

Kakashi Hatake

Age: 25

Birthday: September 15th

Height: 180cm or 5ft 11in

Appearance: Same! Just taller(I find all the characters to be unusual short so everyone just gets to be taller in my world.)

Raine Hoshino

Age: 15

Birthday: May 22nd

Height: 165cm or 5ft 5in

Appearance: (ANBU already described)

She wears a white over-sized boat neck sweater that has a blue diamond with a scale pattern on each arm. The sweater is so over-sized that her right shoulder is constantly being shown. The front of the sweater is tucked into black leather shorts that are an inch and a half away from being qualified as "booty shorts". Her black pouch is located on her front right. On her left thigh are black bandages and a navy kunai holster. Her right thigh has her blue forehead protector that's been crisscrossed several times before tied. She wear all of her gypsy anklets on both legs and wears black getas (Japanese wooden flip-flops). On top of her head she wears a large blue scarf as a headband (think Vincent Valentine from FF7. The thick red headband? Now think blue and long and flowing at the ends. Also think long bangs that stick out from underneath and flip out.). Her hair is snow-white, wavy, and thins out as you go down. (It makes a V shape) the longest stands go to just below her butt. She also has violet eyes with golden specks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

Hello Hello! As always, I would like to begin by giving ** XT3100**! Thank you very much for reviewing again! I'm glad that you liked the time skip^^ Anyways, this is another long one and unfortunately, I lost a large chunk of the story due to an internet issue... But! I didn't rage quit this time and persevered. However, the fighting isn't as detailed as it was originally so that's quite unfortunate. I apologize if they're a bit lack luster. I hope that none of you mind curse words by the way. Enjoy!

-Butterfly

* * *

**The Bridge of Hope**

"What's the distance to the target?"

"Five meters. I'm ready anytime."

"So am I."

"Me too."

"GO!"

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.

.

"NYAAAA!"

"No wonder it ran," Sakura whispered.

"Stupid cat deserves it," Naruto muttered, still bitter about what the cat had done to his face. Luckily, Sakura knew a few basic medical ninjutsus and his face was free of claw marks.

"Now... Kakashi's Team 7 your next duty is... Hmmm... babysitting an elder's grandson, shopping in the neighboring village, and helping with the potato digging," Sarutobi announced as he inhaled the smoke of his pipe.

"NO! NO! NO! NO, Thank you," Naruto yelled as he crossed his hands into a giant 'X' over his head. "I wanna do something more incredible find us a better mission!"

"Seriously. No offense Hokage-sama but, these lame missions are super boring," Sakura interjected.

"I agree. Give us a better mission gramps," Sasuke demanded.

Kakashi sighed inwardly, he had been waiting for this to happen.

"You idiots! You all are just rookies! Everyone starts off with the simple duties and works their way up," Iruka yelled as he jumped from his seat.

"But! But! We keep getting the crappiest possible duties," Naruto retorted earning a slap to the back of the head by Kakashi.

"Naruto! Sasuke! Sakura! It seems I have to explain to you what these duties are all about. Listen-," Sarutobi began only to be cut off.

"Everyday the village receives tons of requests ranging from babysitting to assassination. Each request is written down and divided into an A, B, C, D ranking based on difficulty. The village is also divided by skill. The Hokage is the strongest, then comes the jounin, then the chunin, and then at the bottom of the tier are us genin. The missions are then handed out depending on the ninjas ability and once the duty is completed the village recieves payment," Sakura dronned.

"Come on now there's no point on lecturing us. We're just asking for you to hand us a mission that's actually appropriate for ninja of our caliber," Sasuke remarked.

"Yeah! We're not the trouble-making brats that you still think we are. We're full-fledged shinobi," Naruto finished as he crossed his arms.

The trio stood firm, determined not leave the building with anything less than a C rank mission. Child's play was over.

An amused smile graced the Hokage's lips.

"Okay... I'll give you a C-rank mission. It's a protection mission of a certain individual," Sarutobi began.

"Who? Who? A feudal lord? A princess?" Naruto guessed excitedly.

"Calm down, I'm about to introduce him," Sarutobi informed. "Please come in."

The door slid open to show a grey haired man drinking a bottle of what was most likely alcohol.

"What's this? A bunch of brats. Especially the shortest one with the super stupid looking face. Are you really a ninja?" The old man taunted.

Naruto turned his head to look at both Sakura and Sasuke and began to sweat.

"I'll kill you bastard!" Naruto screamed as he struggled against Kakashi's hand that was firmly holding his orange vest and black shirt.

"Listen here brats. I am the super expert bridge builder, Tazuna. I expect you to provide me super protection until I get back to my country and complete the bridge."

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.

.

"Let's go, let's go!" Naruto yelled excitedly it was his first time leaving the village and he couldn't be more excited.

"Hey am I really gonna safe with this brat?" Tazuna asked pointing an excusing finger at Naruto.

Kakashi laughed dryly," Well, I'm a jounin so don't worry."

Naruto was about to retort when he saw a flash a white. Naruto looked up at a tree to see an ANBU wearing a blue dragon mask with long white hair loosely braided to the side.

"AH," Naruto yelled in recognition faintly hearing Sasuke and Sakura give the same reaction.

Said ANBU flipped off the tree and silently landed in front of the group. She said nothing as she walked to Naruto and ruffled his hair and then made her way over to Sasuke and Sakura to do the same. The ANBU then stood in front of Kakashi and bowed before disappearing in a swirl of snow.

"What was that about?" Tazuna asked eyeing Team 7 suspiciously.

"Hmm, I'm wondering the same thing," Kakashi remarked.

The genin of Team 7 grinned knowingly at each other but made no reaction to the question otherwise.

"Man, I'm totally ready to destroy any ninja that comes my way now! Bring it on," Naruto cheered, thrusting a fist into the air. He was gonna kick someones ass and tell Raine-nee all about it. It would finally be his turn to tell her all about how bad ass he was on his mission.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Naruto but, there won't be any ninja combat on a C-rank mission," Kakashi stated as he ruffled Naruto's hair.

Sasuke watched as Tazuna flinched at Kakashi's statement. Something was definitely up. Sasuke casually began to walk next to Sakura and whispered his suspicion. The two nodded at each other and began to flank Naruto as they discreetly warned him that something was amiss. The trio walked casually surrounding Tazuna in what looked to be no particular order.

Sakura almost flinched when she saw a puddle on the ground. She looked at the boys and noticed that they had also recognized it. Usually they wouldn't have been suspicious of a puddle but years of training with a water and ice ninjutsu specialist had made the three genin hypersensitive to water. Not to mention that it hadn't rained in days. Sakura caught the slight change in Kakashi's demeanor and realized that he had sensed it as well.

After walking a few feet away from the puddle Sakura felt the slight change in the air that indicated that the enemy had decided to make his presence known. Sakura turned just in time to watched as chains wrapped around a seemingly surprised Kakashi and tear him to pieces.

The enemy ninjas then began to attack Naruto with their chain when Sakura skillfully embedded a shuriken through their chain into a tree while Sasuke jumped and secured it with a kunai. He then landed onto of the assailant's arms and kicked at them so that the force broke the chain. Naruto then took the chance to attack one of the enemy nin while Sakura crouched in front of Tazuna, kunai in hand. Before the enemy could engage with Sakura, Kakashi suddenly reappeared. He easily disarmed the enemies and tied them to the tree that their broken chain was hanging uselessly on.

"Show off," Sasuke muttered as he retrieved his kunai and handed Sakura her shuriken. The was no need to be wasteful now.

"Good job you three. Excellent teamwork as always. However... Naruto their claws are soaked in poison and we must open up the wound and release the poisoned blood from your body. Don't move much, or the poison will spread. As for you Tazuna-san. I need to talk to you. These guys are chunin-class ninja from Kirigakure. They are ninjas known to keep fighting no matter what," Kakashi stated before getting interrupted.

"How did you read our movements?" One of the Kiri nin asked.

Naruto gave a harsh laugh. "We've been training with a high leveled ninja that's known for her mastery in water and ice ninjutsu. The puddle trick is child's play."

"Doesn't help that it hasn't rained in days," Sakura added.

"Anyways," Kakashi interjected. "Tazuna-san we were hired to protect you from thieves and gangs, not enemy nin. This has just become an expensive B ranked mission. I'm sure you have a reason for lying but we are now operating outside of our duties and Naruto's poisoned so we should hurry back to the village..."

The sound of skin breaking could be heard as everyone turned to see that Naruto had stabbed a kunai into his hand.

"I've endured grueling training secession for the past few years and crappy D-ranked missions around the village for the last couple of weeks. There's no way I'm backing down. With this kunai, I vow to protect this old man. We're continuing," Naruto yelled raising the morale.

Kakashi smiled inwardly. The kid had guts that was for sure. "Naruto... It's good that you are releasing the poison and all but... Anymore and... you'll die from lack of blood," Kakashi warned with an eye smile.

Naruto cursed loudly and began to panic while Sasuke shook his head and Sakura sighed.

"Come here Naruto," she commanded.

Said boy, practically ran up to her and begged her to do something as he yelled something about being to pretty to die young. Grabbing his hand, Sakura inspected his wound. Unsurprisingly, the wound was already beginning to heal itself. She then closed her eyes and channeled her chakra to her own hand that was hovering just above Naruto's. In a few moments, Naruto's hand was as good as new whilst Sakura was slightly woozy although nobody had noticed. Sakura had excellent chakra control and hadn't had much difficulty learning the basics of the healing palm technique but, there was only so much she could learn from a scroll so, using the technique always left her a bit fatigued since she wasted much more chakra then need be.

"Sensei," Tazuna started. "I'll tell you guys everything.

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.

"Wow, this place is amazing," Naruto all but yelled earning him a punch to the head, courtesy of Sasuke of course.

"Be quiet idiot! We're trying not to be detected remember?" Sasuke hissed.

The sound of a shuriken flying through the air could be heard as Naruto yelled, "Show yourself!"

Sasuke added a second bump to Naruto's head as he pointed to the snow-white rabbit Naruto had almost murdered in cold blood.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry little rabbit," Naruto apologized as he gave the poor creature a bear hug and rubbed his face up against its own.

Kakashi eyed the rabbit suspiciously. Snow rabbit's had white fur in the winter yet it was clearly spring. Which could only mean one thing.

"Everyone get down!" Kakashi warned. A mere half a second later a large sword went flying through the air until it stuck itself into a tree. Standing on its handle was a man taller than Kakashi wearing a Kirigakure forehead protector.

"Well...well.. If it isn't Kirigakure's missing-nin Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi stated stoically.

The genin of Team 7 began to prepare themselves to fight but we're stopped.

"Stand down, this one's on a whole other level. Surround and protect Tazuna-san. Do not fight. That's the teamwork here," Kakashi commanded.

"It'll be a little tough unless I use this," Kakashi murmured to himself as he reached for his slanted forehead protector. Slowly, Kakashi pulled the protector up, revealing a scared red-eye with three black commas.

"Sharingan," Sakura whispered in awe whilst Naruto's eyes widened. The two quickly recovered and turned to check Sasuke's reaction. Sasuke was completely frozen. There was no way. There was only supposed to be one other person that had that eye. Sasuke shook himself out of his revere and saw Naruto and Sakura looking worriedly at him.

"You heard him. Protect Tazuna-san," Sasuke reminded as he moved in front of Tazuna, Naruto and Sakura quickly moving to their spots soon after. Sasuke had plenty of questions to ask his mysterious sensei but, now was obviously not the time.

"Oh, the Sharingan. I'm honored Copy Ninja Kakashi, the man who has copied over 1000 justu," Zabuza taunted receiving no reaction from his prey. "No response? That's fine, I was gonna end all the talking now anyways. I have to kill that old man but... It seems like I I'll have to kill you first, Kakashi."

Grabbing his sword, Zabuza teleported into the middle of a lake.

"Ninpou... Kirigakure no Jutsu."

"He's gone," Naruto yelled as he stared at the leaf that had replaced Zabuza.

"Don't worry he'll come after me first but... Zabuza Momochi... As a member of Kirigakure he was known as an expert in silent killing. You don't even notice until you're already dead. It's not like I can use the Sharingan perfectly... You guys be careful," Kakashi warned.

The three tensed and visibly began to perspire however, they stood their ground, kunai in hand.

The mist began to thicken.

"8 choices," spoke a chilling voice. "Livers, lungs, spine, clavicle vein, neck vein, brain, kidneys, heart... Which one should I go after first?"

Sasuke's heart began to race. What was this incredibly dangerous ki? Never in his life had he experienced such killing intent. It felt as if a single move would kill him, experiencing this for a while would drive him crazy. He could already feel his life being squeezed out at this rate he'd almost rather die and get it over with.

"Sasuke," Kakashi spoke, breaking the boys trance. "Don;t worry... I'll protect you guys even if it kills me. I don't let my comrades die," Kakashi reassured his eyes closing as if to smile.

Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto began to visibly relax at the words only to tense when they felt someone appear behind them.

"It's over," Zabuza proclaimed only to be stabbed by Kakashi.

"Sensei! Behind you," Naruto yelled as 'Zabuza' turned to water. A sword went straight through his abdomen revealing that he too, was a water clone.

"Don't move. It's over," Kakashi stated with a kunai at Zabuza's throat.

'Zabuza' laughed before turning into water.

"Guess again."

Kakashi quickly ducked down before Zabuza could lob his head off but, didn't move in time to block the kick that sent him flying into the water. Within seconds Kakashi was trapped in a sphere of water with Zabuza next to him.

Sakura gasped at the familiar jutsu and Sasuke went rigid with recognition. "Suiro no Jutsu," Naruto disdainfully murmured, he, himself had experienced that jutsu one too many times.

"Oh," came a voice from the water. "You know this jutsu?" Zabuza asked as he created a water clone. "I'm surprised that you kids know about this technique. Hehe, wearing those headbands and acting like ninjas. A real ninja is someone who has survived numerous brushes with death. Only when you're good enough to be in my handbook... can you start calling yourself ninjas. You," Zabuza stated. "Are not ninja!" He finished as his foot connected with Naruto's face.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled ready to run to his side however, something held her back. She looked to her hand to see Sasuke's. "Sasuke," she hissed in annoyance. "Cool your head. You won't be doing any good if you're acting without thinking." Sakura's shoulder's dropped in resignation and she took a deep breath. Sasuke was right. She couldn't lose her head. She needed to think. She was the brains of the group and she needed to come up with a plan.

"Take Tazuna-san and run! You have no chance of beating hin. I'm trapped in this prison and can't move. Clones cannot go that far from the real body. Run away," Kakashi shouted.

Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other, unsure of what to do.

Naruto ignored Kakashi and looked at the small pink patch of skin from where he stuck his kunai through his hand. Run away? That just wasn't an option. Naruto then looked at Zabuza and his headband. He was going to get it back.

Naruto ran straight at Zabuza, much to his teammate's distress, and quickly grabbed his headband from underneath Zabuza's foot. He then slid a few feet before stopping between Sakura and Sasuke.

Sakura began to move towards Naruto again but willingly stopped herself again when she saw what was in Naruto's hand. The leaf forehead protector, the sign that they were ninja. Sakura closed her eyes and took in another deep breath. It was time to form a plan.

Naruto slowly stood up, panting. "Hey... you eyebrowless freak," Naruto taunted. "Put this in your handbook. The man who will one day become Hokage... Konoha ninja... Naruto Uzumaki!"

Sakura's eyes widen. She had it. "Naruto. Sasuke," Sakura called. "Remember the day of training at the lake," Sakura hinted and that's all she needed to say. The two boys nodded their heads in understanding and then smirked.

"Let's do this," Naruto called.

A harsh laugh rang through the air. "Going to keep playing ninja eh? When I was your age these hands were already dyed red with blood!"

"Devil... Zabuza."

"Ah.. So you've heard a little about it Kakashi."

"Long ago in Kirigakure, also know as the Blood Mist village... There was one final obstacle in becoming a ninja," Kakashi acknowledged.

"Hm... You already know about that graduation exam."

"That exam?" Sasuke inquired earning harsh chuckles from Zabuza.

"What's this graduation exam thing?" Naruto demanded, annoyed.

Zabuza continued to chuckle until he suddenly turned gravely silent. "Fights to the death between the students."

Naruto froze.

"Friends who had trained and eaten at the same table... Friends who had helped each other and shared dreams, are pitted against each other and go at it... until one of them loses his life."

Sasuke felt his stomach churn in disgust.

"However that all changed due to a devil." A maniacal smile appeared. "Without pause or hesitation, a young boy who was not even a ninja had killed over a hundred of the students." Zabuza's eyes rolled back in glee. "That sure was...FUN!"

Zabuza elbowed Sasuke off his feet and sent him crashing right back to the ground with his fist, making him cough blood. "Die."

Naruto raised his hand to make the cross ram seal. "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

Sakura readied her hands while in front of Tazuna.

Naruto let out a battle cry as his swarm on bunshin encased Zabuza. However, they were quickly thrown off. "Sasuke!" Naruto cried as he threw something at him.

Sasuke easily grabbed the item and unfurled. "Evil wind shuriken...Shadow windmill." Sasuke pushed off into the ground and flew high into the air.

"Shuriken's won't work against me!" Zabuza yelled.

Sasuke merely grinned and sent the shuriken through the air. It went right past the Zabuza clone.

Zabuza scoffed. "So you were aiming for me? But... That's not enough!" He mocked as he grabbed the shuriken only to be shocked that there was another right below.

"Kage Shuriken no Jutsu?"

Zabuza jumped to avoid it. "Still not enough!"

A smirk formed on Sasuke and Sakura's faces.

"POOF!"

Zabuza turned his head.

"RAA!" Naruto screamed as the threw a kunai at Zabuza. The kunai forced Zabuza to move to side however, the kiri-nin did not move fast enough to avoid the cut on his face.

"Damn brat!" Zabuza cursed as he flew at Naruto ready to cut him down with the Evil Windmill Shuriken. He was just about to swing down when something else's flesh was caught on the shuriken. Kakashi looked up in fury.

"I don't fall for the same jutsu twice."

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"Kakashi-sensei, you idiot!" Sakura scolded. "The Sharingan's great and all but, with the amount of stress it puts on your body you need to think before using it. Not to mention your chakra levels are low!"

Tazuna let out a laugh. "Well, at least he defeated that strong of a ninja with it. Now we should be safe for a while."

Sakura furrowed her brows, still unhappy. "By the way, who was that masked kid? An ANBU?"

"Hm... Good guess but not quite," Kakashi answered. "That's the mask worn by the hidden mist special hunter-nin team. They are known as body erasers. Their duty is to completely dispose of the body without a trace. A ninja's body has within it secrets of the village's ninjutsu, information on different chakra types, herbs, and other things that will reveal things about the village. For example, If I died, the secrets of the Sharingan could be revealed. A ninja's body can reveal important information so, by killing and disposing missing-nins who have abandoned their village, the hunter-nins protect information from getting out."

Sakura furrowed her brows even further. "If the hunter-nin are supposed to just get rid of a body without a trace wouldn't that masked kid have just chop up Zabuza's body in front of us? Orr at least use a deadlier weapon than needles?

Sasuke's eyes widened in realization. "No freaking way."

Naruto moved his eyes between the two. "What? What?"

Kakashi grimaced.

"What are you guys talking about?" Tazuna asked.

"Most likely... Zabuza is alive," Kakashi revealed.

"What? But you checked his pulse Kakashi-sensei," Naruto shouted, disbelieving.

Sakura groaned. "I should have known! I've been reading medical books for a year now." Her head fell into her hands. "The needle that masked kid used, is an item used by doctors in acupuncture therapy and unless it hits a vital organ there's practically no chance in killing. He probably hit the Carotid Sinus since hitting it can lower your pulse and even put someone in a momentary state of death."

"Aren't you guys thinking too much?" Tazuna questioned.

"No. Sakura is right. We will prepare before it's too late," Kakashi stated before turning his head to his team. "You three will receive training."

Naruto grinned. "So we train until the final battle? Sounds like a lot of fun!"

"That's not fun."

Team 7 turned to see a small child wearing a striped hat. "Who the hell are you?" Naruto all but yelled.

"Oh! Inari! Where were you?" Tazuna greeted with his arms open.

"Welcome back grandpa."

"Inari, say hello to these people. They are ninja who protected grandpa," Tsunami commanded.

"Mom. They're gonna die. There's no way they can win against Gatou."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the kid while Sakura started a breathing exercise to calm down. Naruto on the other hand went red in the face before yelling.

"You brat! I'll-! Hey, Inari! Listen! I'm a super hero who will one day become an incredible ninja called Hokage and Sakura and Sasuke are gonna be my left and right hands. I don't know this Gatou guy, but he's got nothing against a powerful team like us!"

"Pft. What are you guys stupid? There's no such thing as a heroes. If you don't want to die, you should leave," Inari criticized before going to his room.

"Damn it! I'm gonna go teach this brat a lesson," Naruto yelled as he went after Inari.

"Ah, wait, Naruto!" Sakura yelled following after.

"Idiots," Sasuke murmured before following his teammates.

The trio made their way up the stairs and heard sobs.

"Crying?" Naruto whispered.

The sobs got louder and their faces fell. Their eyes glazed over as each of them began to relieve different ghost. Ghosts that would still violently haunt each of them if it weren't for the security that they had gained by being together for the last 5 years. Unconsciously, Sakura reached for the two hands she trusted more than anything in the world. Their hands intertwined and she gave both hands a slight squeeze.

"Let's go, we need to get all the rest we can before training," she murmured.

The boys nodded.

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"OK, we will now start the training," announced a three-legged Kakashi.

"Hell yeah let's do this," Naruto cheered, pumping his fists in the air.

"But first, I have a few questions."

"Questions?" Sasuke repeated.

"Well, the better word for it would be an explanation. I've been quite curious for a while now. You all recognized the puddle technique the two Kiri chunin used and you recognized all the water techniques Zabuza used. Not to mention the suspicious interaction with that young ANBU captain with the Seiryuu mask. So care to explain what that was about and how you all are so knowledgeable about water ninjutsus?"

"The ANBU was just Raine-nee saying goodbye. She probably had to leave on a mission," Naruto stated casually.

"Naruto you idiot, you can't just tell people which ANBU is which. They're suppose to be anonymous remember?" Sakura chided after she smacking him upside the head.

"Sorry! I forgot! It's fine it's just Kakashi-sensei anyways."

"Care to explain who exactly this Raine-nee person is? And a better explanation than last time please."

Sasuke sighed. "Raine-nee is this weird gypsy girl that we met years ago during the gypsy festival. We caught her eyes so, she tricked us all into hanging out with her that day and then decided that we should all live together. Since she's older and takes care of us we all call her our Onee-san."

"Ok..."

"Raine-nee is super awesome and smart though! She's always reading so our house is full of all kinds of books and scrolls. She graduated the Academy only a month after she got there and then within the year she was promoted to chunin. She became a jounin at 12 and we only recently found out that she's in ANBU and a captain nevertheless! And she's only 15 although she'll be 16 in May," Naruto bragged.

"Anyways... We've been training with her since we've met her and she has an abnormally high affinity for water and ice so she knows tons of water and ice jutsus. She's used the puddle trick a few times to trick us and has used the water prison technique on each one of us more times than I can count. I'm pretty sure she knows the other two water jutsus Zabuza used as well," Sakura finished.

Kakashi eyes widened for a quick second. Ice? That was rare. "I see... Is that why you three have such great teamwork?"

The three nodded. "If we didn't learn to work as a team, I'm pretty sure we would have all drowned or died of hypothermia by now," Sakura commented grimly.

Kakashi looked at the serious expressions of his team. It would seem like their Raine-nee didn't go all to easy on them. He would have to meet and thank the young teen for making his job a little easier for him later.

"So than I assume you know how to manipulate chakra to climb objects and walk on water?"

Sasuke scoffed, "We learned how to climb objects within the week of living together because Raine-nee refused to buy a ladder. Learning to walk on water was something we learned out of desperation to survive."

Kakashi sweat dropped. Apparently his students had lived through a lot.

"Okay so, have you all checked you affinities?"

"Nope."

Kakashi reached into his pouch and pulled out 4 small paper squares and began to hand one to each member, leaving one he could use to demonstrate with.

"These pieces of paper are made from a special tree that has constantly been fed chakra. Because of that the paper will react to the slightest bit of chakra. The paper reacts differently depending on your chakra," Kakashi stated pushing some of his own chakra into his paper.

The paper immediately began to wrinkle. "Understood? Now you all try."

The three genin closed their eyes and concentrated their chakra to their paper. Naruto's split right down the center. Sakura's turned to dirt and began to crumble away. Surprisingly, Sasuke's began to wrinkle just as Kakashi's had, before igniting and turning into ash.

"Woah no fair! How come Sasuke's had two reactions?" Naruto asked.

"It means he has two affinities like your Onee-san does. Sasuke you have a fire affinity which is no surprise due to your Uchiha blood. However, you also have lightning affinity like me. Sakura you have an earth affinity and Naruto you have a wind affinity. Anyways, Naruto I need you to find a leaf and see if you can cut it in half with your chakra. Sakura you can either find a rock and see if you can manipulate it into a different shape or you can train from those medical scrolls you brought. As for you Sasuke, I'll teach you some of the fire techniques that I know."

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The sun began to set as three very tired, young shinobis began walking out of a forest. Each person was dripping with sweat and they were all both irritable and hungry. A horrific combination.

"That stupid rock just won't do what I want it to do," Sakura loudly complained.

"At least your stupid rock kinda made a shape. I didn't even get a half a centimeter cut through the damn leaf. Half a freaking centimeter! How could cutting a leaf with chakra be this damn hard?" Naruto cried in exasperation.

"Psh, you both don't have any right to be complaining in front of me. My mouth is burnt from trying to learn Katon: Endan from Kakashi," Sasuke argued.

"Are you trying to say something Sasuke," Naruto asked glaring.

"All I'm saying is that learning a jutsu is one hundred times hard than splitting a leaf. Even Sakura's rock thing sounds harder."

"Excuse me?" Sakura asked squinting her eyes.

"What? My leaf thing is a thousand times harder than your stupid fire jutsus and Sakura's dumb rock," Naruto rebutted.

The three friends eyed each other... And then all hell broke loose.

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Naruto rubbed his head. He currently had a large bump thanks to the jackknife kick that Sakura had so kindly delivered onto his head.

"Hey Sakura, When'd you learn extreme martial art?"

The pink haired kunoichi dropped the half shuriken she had made from a rock and turned to look at her blonde friend. He had cut his leaf one-fourth of the way. "I got bored with just reading when I woke up early so I decided to ask Raine to teach me," Sakura answered nonchalantly.

"That feilong cross really hurt by the way," Sasuke commented as he decided to take a break.

"At least you didn't get jackknifed man. FC is only two kicks while JK is three," Naruto whined.

"You guys are both forgetting that you guys totally hit me a few times too," Sakura reminded.

"Oh my are my three lovely students fighting again? We wouldn't want to add on to the number of injuries and worry poor Lady Tsunami now would we?" Kakashi accused. Yesterday had really been something else. The moment the three walked in the house Tsunami had a fit and he himself had been worried that they might have been ambushed. Of course Kakashi was shocked and somewhat irritated that all the wounds had come from each other due to an argument over something as petty as who had the most difficult task. Kakashi sighed and absent-mindedly wondered how that Raine-nee dealt with them.

"We weren't going to fight," Sasuke defended and much to Kakashi's amusement pouted slightly.

"Anyways, it's time for dinner. You three won't have enough chakra to train if you're not eating properly.

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"Thank you very much for the meal," Sasuke commented as he began to help gather the dishes. He then shot Naruto and Sakura a look.

Said teammates inwardly laughed to themselves before saying thanks and moving to help put away the dishes. Team 7 may have been rambunctious, competitive, and violent but, they knew their manners, or at least Sasuke knew.

As Sakura moved to sit back at her seat she noticed a picture on an otherwise barren wall. "Excuse me but, why do you have a torn picture on the wall? Inari-kun was staring at this during dinner. It seems like someone purposely removed someone in the picture."

"It's my husband," Tsunami replied.

"And... the man called the hero of the city," Tazuna finished.

Inari loudly left his chair and slammed the door.

"Father! I specifically told you not to talk about that man in front of Inari," Tsunami yelled, distraught.

"Well, What happened?" Sasuke asked although he was sure he already knew.

Tazuna sighed wishing he had a bottle of sake. "Well..."

_...The 6th Morning of Training..._

The sun shined brilliantly and the sounds of birds and snoring floated through the calm forest air. Down on the forest floor lay three Konoha ninja, one with a leaf split in three-fourths of the way beside him, another with several rocks that had been shaped into shuriken, and the other led to an area that had been burned to ash.

Meanwhile back in a small wooden home a grey haired ninja yawned loudly.

"Those kids didn't come back?" An older man asked.

"I hope they're alright. Children all alone in the wood..." A feminine voice wondered, concern laced in her voice.

"Don't worry! They may be young and might not look like it but their true ninja," the grey hair ninja replied although, truthfully he wondered if he should check on them just to make sure none of them had starved or killed each other for that matter.

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"You all are going to catch a cold sleeping a place like this," a light voice spoke, shaking Naruto into the realm of the living.

"Hn, Who are you?" Naruto asked as he moved to wake Sasuke up while the stranger moved to wake Sakura.

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"Thanks for helping me out."

"It was not a problem. Thank you for waking my teammates and I up," Sasuke replied dutifully, Sakura and Naruto automatically following suite.

"It was not a problem. What were all doing here at this time anyways?" The long-haired person asked.

"Training!" Naruto cheered.

"Why are you training?"

"Because we want to get stronger," Sakura answered.

"But you all already look plenty strong."

"But that doesn't mean we're strong enough. We want to be stronger," Sasuke commented.

"...Why is that?"

"I'm gonna become the best ninja in my village and make everyone acknowledge my strength. Sakura wants be strong enough to protect all the people she loves and Sasuke's got someone he needs to beat no matter what. That and all three of us have decided we need to be strong enough to have each-others backs and we need to prove something to someone," Naruto determinedly explained.

The person smiled. "When a person has something important to protect...That''s when they can truly become strong. You all will become strong. Let's meet again somewhere. Oh and I'm a boy."

_... The 7th Day ..._

"I can't believe he was a boy," Naruto marveled through heavy breaths.

Sakura released the dirt armor she was beginning to form around her fist. "That's right! You guys owe me chocolate by the way. Since I won the bet."

"How'd you know anyways?" Sasuke asked as he moved towards his two friends.

"I'm a girl! Other girls can usual tell when they're looking at another girl. Besides he looked like a guy from the back," Sakura reasoned.

"Done training?" a familiar voice asked.

"Yeah we've become masters! Sakura's even started to shape the Earth into gauntlets," Naruto boasted.

"Ah, Doton: Kengan no Jutsu huh? Very impressive Sakura."

Sakura smiled happily at the comment. "How are you Sensei?"

"Hm..." He began as he put himself in a push up position. "Climb on my back please."

The three genin raised an eyebrow but did so anyways. This was going to be interesting. Kakashi, then to the astonishment of his team began to do one finger, one handed push ups.

"Woah Kakashi! You're pretty cool aren't you?" Naruto observed.

"Being in the bingo book and having the sharingan doesn't make me cool?" Kakashi asked as he switched fingers.

"Sasuke has the sharingan too so, that just makes you better than most in terms of coolness points," Sakura pointed out.

"And there are tons of people in a bingo book. That's why there's a book and not just a list or a few wanted posters so, that only gives you a few points," Sasuke stated.

"But one fingered push ups with all three of us on you. We'll give you tons of coolness points for that," Naruto beamed.

Kakashi laughed. Coolness-points? What?

.

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The three walked in arm and arm sweat dripping and chakra low.

"Oh... you guys are finally back," Tazuna commented. "You all look super dirty and worn out."

Naruto gave a small chuckle.

"All right Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura... Starting tomorrow you three will help me protect Tazuna-san," Kakashi commanded.

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"Naruto that idiot wasted way to much chakra," Sakura chided as the group made their way to the bridge.

"Says the one who barely woke up," Sasuke teased.

Sakura glared.

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Naruto opened his eyes and look to see... no one. Where'd everyone go? Then it dawned on him.

"AH! I overslept! Hey, where is everyone?" Naruto asked to Tsunami.

"Oh sensei said that you should rest," she replied.

Naruto ran back to his room and began to undress out of his night wear. "I knew it! I knew it! They left me behind! I'm off!"

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"Here they come!"

Sasuke readied a kunai in his hands while Sakura fingered her kunai holster.

"I see you're with brats still Kakashi. Poor kids shaking," a chilly voice from somewhere in the mist before appearing in fourfold around the group.

A smirk graced Sasuke's features. "I'm shaking with excitement."

Kakashi allowed a smile to grace his feature. "Get him Sasuke."

Sasuke easily slashed through the Zabuzas making them turn into water.

"It seems you have a rival Haku."

Sasuke made a face. "That one's mine. Tricking us with that stupid act... I hate bastards like that."

Sakura sighed it would seem like she wouldn't get any action today.

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Naruto looked at the sight before him.

"Get away from my mom!"

Naruto widened his eyes before quickly moving to replace Inari with a log.

"Kawarimi no Jutsu?"

"Sorry being late," Naruto apologize. "But a hero usually shows up at the last second... Great job, Inari!"

"Well, well, If it isn't one of the loser ninjas Tazuna hired," on of the samurai taunted only to be blatantly ignored.

"Thanks to you distracting them, I was able to save you mom."

Naruto then proceeded to throw two shuriken at the two swordsmen.

The swordsmen easily blocked them with their swords. "Like that will work against us!"

Naruto watched as his two clones neared in from behind and smirked.

"Idiots."

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Naruto neared the bridge and noticed how injured Sasuke was. He was tempted to just storm in but, he knew that he had to make his surprise count. Naruto watched as Sakura threw senbon at the masked boy. Now was his chance.

Naruto threw a shuriken that knocked the masked person out of the ice mirrors and appeared in a large cloud of smoke. The flashier the better.

"Naruto Uzumaki has finally arrived! Now that I'm here everything will be fine! The main character of a story usually shows up in these types of situations and instantly kicks the enemy's ass!"

Kakashi felt his face drop. "What kind of...? That freaking idiot! And he calls himself a ninja?"

Meanwhile Sasuke was having the exact same thoughts.

The sound of shuriken and senbon colliding broke the two ninja out of their disbelief.

Zabuza glared harshly at Sakura while she wore and equally chilling glare. "Pay attention to your own fight no brow."

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"Katon: Endan no jutsu!"

"Shit the ice doesn't melt!" Naruto yelled.

Sasuke clicked his tongue. So this ice was the same as Raine's. This was going to be difficult. "It's a kekkei genkai," Sasuke muttered unhappily.

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"Are you that afraid of the Sharingan?" Kakashi asked as he lifted his forehead protector.

Zabuza smirked. "I've already seen through your Sharingan!"

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A female's scream filled the air. Sasuke and Naruto immediately stiffened.

"What the hell is going on out there? Kakashi better be protecting Sakura," Naruto spoke through harsh gasps.

Sasuke was just as distraught. "Damn it! I need to do something," Sasuke yelled within his mind.

"You move well. But this time I'll stop you," Haku declared.

Sasuke gritted his teeth and took in a breath of air. He needed to calm down...concentrate... and see through it!

Sasuke quickly grabbed Naruto and moved out of the way, avoiding the ice needles. Sasuke opened his red eyes to glare at Haku. He could see.

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"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura cried as she watched the blood flow from the cut Zabuza inflicted.

"Shit!" she screamed in her head. This wasn't suppose to be happening. She was supposed to protect to Tazuna but, in the end she was just a burden.

"You were too slow Kakashi. Did your desire to save these brats cloud your mind and make the mist thicker? Don't worry about the brats Haku has probably already killed them and I..." He began to chuckle. "Will send you to them."

A streak of blood appeared at Zabuza's neck. Zabuza touched it in wonder and stared at the small girl who had inflicted the wound upon him.

"Shut the fuck up don't dare say underestimate MY teammates. Naruto can get through anything and Sasuke's a freaking Uchiha prodigy. They'll destroy Haku," Sakura spat fury in her eyes.

Zabuza's eyes widened maniacally,"An offspring to that tragic clan? No matter you can say what you want little girl but no one has ever defeated that special jutsu." Zabuza proclaimed before disappearing in the mist. Sakura immediately grabbed two kunais from her pouch and readied herself.

"Sakura stay here. I'm going to end this," Kakashi declared.

"Zabuza can you hear me? You seem to think that I survived this long thanks to the Sharingan. I'm a former ANBU. I'll show you what kind of ninja I used to be."

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"Geez... All you ever do is get in the way," Sasuke complained.

Naruto grinned as he looked to see Haku on the ground. "Sasuke you-" Naruto began to congratulate but was shocked silent when he took in his friends form.

"What's with that stupid look on your face?" Sasuke asked as he attempted a smirk.

Naruto could only stare at the blood. "Why?"

Sasuke let out a dry chuckle. "Gotta protect family, that's what Raine always says right?"

Naruto moved quickly to catch Sasuke's falling form. "Take care... of the girls for me and... If you ever see him... get him for me," Sasuke whispered before shutting his eyes.

"He landed a blow on me and then without flinching he died to protect you. He's a shinobi that deserves respect."

Naruto gritted his teeth in anger as he slowly layed Sasuke's body down.

"I'll kill you."

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A chill ran through Sakura's body and she felt her entire body unconsciously tense with fear. What was this feeling?

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Naruto punched the masked boy straight in the face sending him crashing through his ice mirror. He then sprinted at the boy readying his fist for a second punch but stopped inches before his fist were to collide.

"You!"

"Why'd you stop? I killed your friend remember?"

Naruto's fist connected.

"You can't kill me with that."

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"Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu!"

The mist cleared quickly and revealed Zabuza...immobilized by eight dogs.

"These are my cute nin dogs. Their sense of smell exceeds that of all other dogs and you just so happen to have the smell of my blood all over you. The mist has cleared. Your future is death."

Sakura watched in awe at her sensei. His hand emitted a large amount of blue chakra which flickered every which way.

"Surrender."

Zabuza smiled. "No."

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"We could have been friends you know."

Haku smiled. "Thank you."

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Kakashi's eyes widened in horror as he realized who he had just pierced.

"Za...bu..za...-san."

Zabuza close his eyes before opening them once more.

"My future is death? Wrong again Kakashi."

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"Where'd that guy go?" Naruto wondered. He rapidly looked around until he made out three figures.

Naruto stopped straight abruptly at the sight before he and began to shake when he watched as Zabuza tried to cut through both Kakashi and Haku's corpse.

"Unforgivable," Naruto all but yelled.

"Naruto this is my fight," Kakashi commanded as he closed Haku's eyes.

"Naruto," came another voice.

Said boy slowly turned to look at the pinkette and began to quickly shake his head and dropped it.

Sakura's eyes widened and her body trembled. "I'll go with you so that you don't break your sensei's orders," Tazuna offered.

Sakura nodded her head thankfully and flew past Naruto. At the sight of his body she fell to her knees. "Don't mind me... It's best to let it out and cry," Tazuna offered. Sakura merely continued to look at the body before whispering a soft no. "I'm not giving up on him yet," she stated determinedly.

She quickly reached for her medical pouch and dropped the contents beside her. Bandages. Needles. Anesthetics. Disinfectants. Ointments. Scrolls. Sakura quickly reached for the hair band and tied her long pink hair back. She could do this.

Kakashi harshly stabbed a kunai into Zabuza's arm. "Now both arms are useless. You can't even perform a seal," Kakashi commented.

Both ninjas looked up as an annoying voice broke them from the trance of battle.

"Ooh... You're getting your ass kicked. How disappointing."

"Gatou... Why are you here? What' with all these men?" Zabuza asked angrily.

The short man giggled evilly. "Plan has changed, actually I planned on doing this since the beginning. Zabuza... I never planned on paying you, I'm going to have you killed here."

Gatou continued to mock Zabuza as the thugs behind him taunted him.

"Kakashi I'm sorry. This fight is over. Now that I have no reason to go after Tazuna I have no reason to fight you."

Kakashi gave the man a knowing look. "Ah...You're right."

Naruto watched as the short old man walked up to Haku's corpse muttering something about breaking his arm. Naruto quickly felt a surge of rage when the old man's foot connect with Haku's face.

"What are you doing? You bastard?" Naruto dashed towards Gatou only to be stopped by Kakashi.

"Don't be foolish look at their numbers don't just jump in."

Naruto shook with anger. Who cared about numbers? Why wasn't anyone going apeshit on that geezer.

"Say something! Weren't you friends? Don't you feel anything at all? Weren't you two always together? He loved you so much that he died for you! Do you really feel nothing?" Naruto screamed angrily at Zabuza, tears streaming down his face. "He thew away his life for you! Without his own dream... to die as a tool... That's... just too sad!"

Zabuza moved slowly towards Naruto tears flowing down his own face. "Kid, give me your kunai."

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Naruto looked down as Gatou's decapitated head flew through the head and Zabuza finally collapsed.

"Don't look away," Kakashi spoke. "This is the end of a man who lived a difficult life."

Naruto looked up. "Yeah."

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Sasuke wearily felt a familiar chakra warming his body. Slow, he opened his eyes and turned his head.

"S-Sakura?"

Said girl finally let a tear escape her eyes before she enveloped the boy in a hug.

"Sasuke Uchiha you big reckless jerk don't scare me like that ever again!"

Sasuke smiled softly and returned the hug. Slowly he got to his feet along with Sakura.

"Naruto," called the pinkette. "I did it! Sasuke's alive!"

Naruto began to tear up and Kakashi let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey. Hey. HEY! You damn ninjas you killed out next meal ticket. You guys are dead," the mob of thugs yelled.

Kakashi gritted his teeth. This was bad he had no chakra left after using all those jutsus. Kakashi reached for a kunai when suddenly a harpoon fell in front of the mob.

"If you come any further onto our island," came high-pitched voice. "The citizens of this country will stop you with everything we've got!"

Naruto smiled in relief. "Inari!"

Said boy gave a sly grin. "A hero shows up at the last second right?"

Naruto grinned right back. "Ok! I'll help out." Naruto easily made 4 kage bunshin appear causing the mob to take a step back unsurely.

Kakashi sighed and made the necessary hand signs. Might as well try to fool them. An army of Kakashis appeared. "You want some of this?"

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"Kakashi I have a request."

Kakashi stopped reaching for his forehead protector and covered his eye. "What is it?"

"I want to see his face."

Kakashi finished pulled the protector down. "Sure."

_...Two weeks later..._

Sasuke slapped Naruto's thieving hands and slammed his forehead into his. "What the hell are you doing? No only is that bad karma but, It's bad manners!"

Naruto halfheartedly apologized.

Sakura finished her silent prayer and turned to her sensei.

"Kakashi-sensei..."

Hm?"

"Were these two correct about ninjas?"

"A shinobi isn't supposed to pursue his own goals...Becoming the country's tool is the most important thing. That's the same for Konoha."

Sasuke tsked. "I don't like it."

Kakashi sighed. "Well, each and every ninja has to live while dealing with that issue... just like Zabuza... and that boy."

The three genin stared at the graves.

"I guess that..." Sasuke began.

"We'll just to have to..." Sakura continued.

"Be ninja's in our own way!" Naruto finished.

Kakashi smiled.

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"Don't worry we'll come visit!"

Inari's began to shake. "Better..."

Naruto bit his lip in an attempt to not cry.

"Inari... You're sad right," Naruto spoke as he began to shake a bit. "It's alright to cry!"

Inari closed his eyes. "I'm not going to cry! But, Naruto you can cry too!"

Naruto quickly spun around. "Fine...later."

Sakura and Sasuke looked at Naruto and Inari's identical tear-stained, snot nosed faces. "Their like twins," they silently communicated to each other.

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"What should we name the bridge?"

"How about the great Team 7 bridge?"

* * *

AAAAANNNNNDDDD we're done! Hope you enjoyed ladies and gentlemen. Now for some side notes. The **Carotid Sinus **is that famous pressure point that everyone thinks of when they want to knock someone out. Truthfully though knocking someone out by hitting the carotid sinus is extremely dangerous and can lead to death. Don't do it! Also, how do you guys feel about extreme martial arts? I love it! I wish I would have known about it when I was younger, I would have begged my parents to pay for classes. Sigh~ Anyways here's a link to the website I'm using for the tricknames:

club540 tricktionary

Most of them have a video too so that's good for visuals^^. By the way! I write all the jutsu's in japanese romanization because it sounds better when you read it in comparison to the english translation. Anyways, I'm done for today! As always, reviews are appreciated! Bye bye!

-Butterfly


	7. Chapter 7

**Naruto Ice Remix**

Hello everyone! Let me start this one off by saying **XT3100** you're the bomb for always reviewing, it seriously brightens my day. ^^ I've also reached over 500 views! YAY! I didn't think anyone would actually read this and I'm pleasantly surprised to know that so many people have. Anyways I hope you enjoy!

-Butterfly

* * *

**The Chunin Exams Part 1: A PAPER EXAM?!**

"Man, when do you think Raine's coming back?" Naruto asked as the trio waited for their sensei.

"Probably soon, maybe?" Sakura answered. "Or at least I hope so."

Sasuke nodded his head in agreement. "When she comes back we should ask her to train with us again. Since Kakashi-sensei's too damn lazy."

Naruto and Sakura nodded their heads furiously in agreement.

"That damn Kakashi-sensei though. We got back from Wave three whole days ago and all we've done are these crappy D-ranked missions. He hasn't even properly trained us since then either!" Naruto whined.

"Seriously, If it wasn't for the battle with Zabuza I would question how he's a ninja. Chronically tardy and lazy," Sakura ranted.

"Yeah, damn Kakashi. We've already been waiting for three hours now. We should seriously just leave," Sasuke complained.

Just then the devil with grey hair appeared.

"Hey guys! I got lost."

"LIAR!" The threesome yelled.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei lately all of our missions have been too easy! I want a more, you know, hot one! Where I can shine! That follows my ninja path! And my heart like...!" Naruto exclaimed with a fire in his eye.

"We'd also like to seriously train," Sasuke interjected.

Kakashi spoke apathetically, "Sure, sure, whatever let's go."

Sakura looked at her Sensei in disbelief and then looked at the sky. "Raine hurry and come home!"

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"Did you seriously need to push yourself that hard for a babysitting mission?" Sasuke grumbled as he dragged an injured Naruto through the streets.

"How did you even manage to injure yourself?" Sakura asked incredulously.

Kakashi promptly ignored his team as he flipped another page of his beloved Icha Icha Paradise. They were being very pushy today about training and doing things. A small leaf fell on the page and Kakashi looked up to see a hawk flying in the sky. It was that day, huh?

"Ok, That's it for today. I have to go submit this mission report," Kakashi began.

"Hold on! What about training?" Naruto hollered.

Kakashi scratched his head. "Uh, good luck with that." And with a poof he was gone.

Team 7 eyed the left over smoke maliciously.

"I'm gonna freaking make destroy that Kakashi doll today," Naruto declared.

"Let's go train on our own," Sakura declared.

Sasuke silently agreed.

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"Naruto would you please do something about the square rock with two eye holes?" Sakura whispered nonchalantly.

Naruto sighed. "What king of rock is square with two holes?"

The 'rock' shook before finally turning over to reveal three brats, all of which were wearing goggles.

Sasuke let an amused smirk grace his lips. "Goggles, eh? I wonder why that's so familiar?"

Sakura giggled.

Naruto faked indifference but beamed inwardly. "Konohamaru, what's with the goggles?"

"We're copying you!" Konohamaru excitedly announced.

"So...what do you want?" Naruto asked still 'indifferent'.

"You said that you'd play ninja with us today!"

Sakura began to laugh loudly and Sasuke simply shook his head.

"A ninja playing ninja. You can't be serious."

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"So how are the brats?" Iruka asked.

Kakashi shifted slightly.

"Oh you wouldn't be talking about my brats would you?" asked a female voice.

Kakashi turned to see a fair-skinned, violet eyed girl with long, wavy white hair that had a large blue scarf tied through it.

"Oh! Raine! Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" Iruka asked worriedly.

Kakashi took another glance at the girl. She had a large square bandage on her right cheek, and her neck, both hands, and left leg were completely covered in bandages.

Said girl waved him off. "No way! You know how I feel about hospitals. Besides I wanna go see the kids. Which by the way nice to official meet you Kakashi-san."

Kakashi crinkled his eye in a smile at the kunoichi. "Nice to officially meet you too Onee-san. I've heard a lot about you."

Raine quirked her eye at the "Onee-san" comment but stayed smiling. "So... As Iruka said how are the brats?"

"Their doing fine. They were all quite advanced thanks to you and Iruka and they've only gotten stronger. I dare say that they're soon to surpass you Iruka."

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Naruto watched as Konohamaru ran into some person's foot.

"That hurt..."

The strange ninja lifted Konohamaru up by his scarf causing the small boy to cry out in pain.

"That hurt you little piece of shit."

Naruto gritted his teeth angrily. Who the fuck were these people?

"Hey fat ass! Let Konohamaru go," Naruto demanded.

The foreign ninja smirked.

Sakura and Naruto looked at each other before moving. Naruto ran at the foreign ninja, efficiently distracting him, and in a matter of a seconds, Sakura grabbed Konohamaru and moved back towards Sasuke and the other kids.

The two foreign ninjas widened their eyes slightly.

Naruto dodged the near invisible string and flipped back to rejoin Sasuke and Sakura.

Naruto and Sasuke grinned at Sakura, "You've gotten faster."

She smirked.

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"Hm.. Are you going to the meeting as well Onee-san?"

Raine shook her head at the nickname. "I didn't know I was older than you," She jested as she entered the packed room along with Kakashi.

Kakashi gave the girl another eye crinkle.

"You've been assembled for only one reason. It should be obvious by the members here," Sarutobi began.

"It's already that time," Kakashi observed.

"It's already been reported to the other countries, I saw them in the village," A man with a senbon in his mouth commented from behind Kakashi. "So when is it?"

The Hokage blew out a puff of smoke. "It'll be officially announced seven days from now and on the first day of the seventh moon the chunin selection exam will commence."

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"You alright Konohamaru?" Sakura asked as she set the boy down.

Konohamaru nodded and went to hug a crying Moegi and Udon.

"Sakura you protect the kids," Naruto commanded.

Sakura quickly rolled her eyes but moved in front of the kids nevertheless, cracking her neck along the way. Why was she always stuck with the protecting job?

Sasuke bent down and lazily grabbed a rock and began a mindless pattern of throwing it up and catching it. Naruto loudly cracked his fists.

"So what are you sand ninja doing in our village?" Sasuke asked menacingly.

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"Now... We'll hear from those who are watching over the new genins. Kakashi, Kurenai and Asuma... Well? Are there any genins that you would like to enter into this chunin selection exam?"

Kakashi dully stepped forward and spoke. "The Kakashi led Team 7, Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, and Sakura Haruno... Under the name of Kakashi Hatake, I nominate them to take the chunin selection exam."

Iruka tensed from his spot. What?

"The Kurenai led Team 8, Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame... under the name of Kurenai Yuuhi, the same as my left."

"The Asuma led Team 10, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi... under the name of Asuma Sarutobi, the same as my left."

"Hm... All of them.. How rare," The Hokage commented.

"Hold on a second," came a voice.

Sarutobi looked up at the owner of the voice. "What is it Iruka?"

"Hokage-sama forgive me for speaking out of place but most of these nine were students of mine at the Academy. They all of course are very talented but it's too early for them to take the exam! They need more experience I can't understand the Jounins reasoning."

Kakashi apathetically eyed Iruka. "I became a chunin at 6."

"They're different from you! Are you trying to crush these kids?" Iruka yelled.

"They're always complaining about the missions being too easy and boring. Experiencing some pain may be good for them...crushing them could be fun too," Kakashi reasoned.

Iruka gritted his teeth. "What?"

"Well that was joke. mostly... But I can understand your feelings, it must upset you but..."

"Kakashi stop," Kurenai warned.

Kakashi payed no mind. "Stay out of this. They are no longer your students. Right now... They are my soldiers."

The air tensed considerably.

"They'll be fine Iruka," spoke a light voice.

Everyone turned to look at the young women. She smiled ever so brightly.

"Konoha's genin are a tough bunch this year and besides our adorable jounin-sensei wouldn't nominate them unless they believed in them so you believe in them too, okay?"

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The rock hit the painted boy's hand.

"You bastard," he hissed.

The painted boy began to pull off the item on his back. The older girl began to sweat slightly.

"Hey, chakra strings aren't enough? You're even going to use Karasu?" she hissed.

Sakura felt a slight change in the air and grabbed the backs of Sasuke's shirt and Naruto's orange vest. The two turned to look at her and she nodded her head in the direction of a tree.

Staring right at them was a boy with bright red hair and a large gourd on his back.

"Kankuro stop," he spoke. "You're an embarrassment to our village."

Sasuke noticed as the one named Kankuro began to perspire. "Ga-Gaara."

"Losing control of yourself in a fight, how pathetic... Why do you think we came to the leaf village?"

Kankuro pointed an accusing finger at Team 7. "Listen Gaara, they started it and..."

"Shut up... I'll kill you."

Naruto felt a shiver go down his spine. What the hell was up with this guy?

"Sorry to you guys," he apologized before reappearing between the two sand shinobi.

The three sand shinobi were about to leave when Naruto spoke.

"Hold on, you didn't answer our question. What are you doing here? State your purpose!"

The blonde haired girl smirked. "Talk about clueless, don't you know anything? We've come here to take the chunin selection exam at your village," the girl explained before revealing her pass.

"Holy shit! For real? Awe man this is gonna be so much fun," Naruto cheered.

Sakura grinned and Sasuke smirked.

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Naruto and Sasuke woke up with a jolt.

"What the hell?" they simultaneously yelled.

They were both drenched with ice cold water. The water began to rise and swirled around a white haired figure.

"Get up and get dressed, your Sensei's waiting for you in the living room. Oh and by the way we're having miso for breakfast."

Sasuke blinked. Wait what?

"Kakashi's in the house?" came a ear shattering shriek of disbelief.

Water dumped back down on Naruto before quickly filtering back to Raine. "Yeah, I met him yesterday and told him he could just start meeting you guys here since it makes things easier for everyone. Now go get dressed," She commanded before leaving with her water.

Raine walked back into the living dining area and noticed that Sakura had already sat down.

"They'll be out in a sec," Raine informed before commanding her water to drop down into the sink.

"That's a nifty ability you have there," Kakashi commented thoughtfully.

Sakura made a face. "It's an evil ability is what it is! Since she can control water so easily she always wakes us up by dropping ice cold water on us and then scoops it back up into the air leaving no mess whatsoever. It's evil I tell you evil!"

A mischievous glint shined in Raine's eye as she flicked her hand up and the miso soup Sakura was about to eat floated up and swirled around in front of the girl teasingly.

"You see," Sakura deadpanned. "Evil."

"Raine-nee you're not suppose to play with people's food," Sasuke scolded.

The older girl smiled. "I thought the saying was that you're not suppose to play with your own food."

Sasuke sighed before sitting across from Kakashi. "It works both ways."

"Kakashi what are you doing here so early?" Naruto asked as he sat down next to Sasuke, hair still dripping wet from his shower.

Raine clicked her tongue in disapproval and came up behind Naruto and ran her hands through his wet hair. She dispersed her chakra and easily grabbed the excess moisture and sent it down the sink with a flick of her wrist.

"Ah...," Kakashi began, slightly mesmerized by Raine's actions. Now that was super useful. "I was promised a free breakfast and what was it... Ah that's right I nominated you guys for the chunin selection exam."

The three genin looked up from their food mouth's still full. They all quickly swallowed.

"Hell yeah! Kakashi-sensei I love you!" Naruto cheered. as he leaned across the dining table to hug Kakashi.

Sasuke grabbed Naruto by his vest collar and set him back down. "I'm trying to finish my food, idiot."

Kakashi straightened himself back out and pulled out three papers. "Well first, here are your applications. Sign them and turn them in at room 301 by 4pm tomorrow if you want to take the exam."

"RAINE-NEE! PENS!" Naruto yelled.

Said girl rolled her eyes but threw three pens towards the dining table. They all caught one easily and signed their names.

"Let's go train! Let's train," Naruto hollered.

Sasuke rolled his eyes but stood up to grab his shoes anyways.

Sakura began to clear the dishes before speaking. "Hey Raine can you teach me some genjutsus or an Earth jutsu?" Sakura asked determinedly.

Raine ran her hand through her hair. "Sure I know a few pretty interesting genjutsus that you can probably do. As for Earth jutsus, I can't help you there. I haven't learned any of those myself."

"Woah hey wait I was gonna ask Raine to teach me a wind jutsu," Naruto pouted.

Sasuke made a face as well. "I wanted to try learning a lightning jutsu."

Raine gave the two boys a look before catching a retreating Kakashi in the corner of her eye. Raine flicked her hand and made a hand sign, freezing the bottom of Kakashi's feet to the ground with his leftover tea. "Oh, I'm sure Kakashi-sensei can help you two."

Kakashi sent the girl a glare. Evil ability indeed.

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Team 7 looked at the crowd surrounding room '301'.

"Excuse me," Sasuke spoke. "Could you please let us pass? We're trying to get to the third floor."

The crowd looked at him strangely.

"Could you please remove the genjutsu now. We're obviously on the second floor here," Sakura continued.

The boy with three bandages on his face smirked. "Not bad. But... All you did was see through it!" He yelled as he moved his leg to kick Sasuke.

Sasuke quickly moved his leg to counter when suddenly a flash of green moved between the two boys and stopped them.

Sasuke lowered his leg. Was that chakra in his arms?

A long-haired boy approached the green spandex wearing boy. "What happened to the plan? You're the one who said that we shouldn't draw attention to us."

The spandex wearing boy turned to look at Sakura, a blush evident on his face.

Sakura felt a chill run up and down her spine. "DANGER! DANGER! Runaway," she heard her mind yell.

The boy confidently walked towards Sakura. "Hi...My name is Rock Lee. Let's go out together! I'll protect you'til I die."

Naruto and Sasuke appeared in front of Sakura. "Sakura here is most sorry but she'll have to decline," the two boys answered for her. Before grabbing her hand and walking away.

Sakura squeezed their hand appreciatively.

They had walked for a bit when they were stopped.

"Wait. You, Sasuke Uchiha, fight me," Lee asked.

Sasuke smirked. "So you know?"

Lee jumped down from the balcony and took his stance. "I wish to test my technique against the off-spring of the genius ninja clan. Plus..." Lee looked towards Sakura and winked.

Her skin began to prickle.

"You're an angel," he called as he sent a blow kiss in her direction.

Sakura rightfully freaked out and performed a hyper snapuswipe to avoid it.

"Please stop. I don't like you that way," she all but begged.

"Anyways," Sasuke began, taking the attention off of Sakura for her. "You're a fool for challenging the Uchiha name. I'll teach you what this name means, bushy brow."

Naruto giggled at the newly appointed nickname.

Sakura shook herself from her shock and looked at the clock.

"Woah! Time out! You guys are gonna have to do this some other time we only have 10 minutes to get to room 301," Sakura informed.

Sasuke straightened himself. "Seriously? Crap let's go," he conceded ignoring Lee.

Lee however took that moment to send Sasuke flying into the air with a kick. Sasuke activated his Sharingan on reflex.

"You bastard," Sasuke hissed.

Lee floated underneath Sasuke and his bandaging was released.

"I'll show you that hard work surpasses genius," He declared.

"That's enough Lee!"

Lee was soon pulled down in front of a turtle. Sasuke flipped in the air and landed next to his teammates, spitting out blood.

"Is that a turtle?" Naruto asked in disbelief. "Can turtles become ninjas?"

Sasuke got up and smacked Naruto across the head. "Idiot."

"You fool!" Yelled the turtle. "You know that shinobi aren't suppose to reveal his special techniques! Are you prepared to pay?"

Lee nodded solemnly.

There was a puff of smoke and than a man wearing a green spandex jumpsuit with a jounin vest, bowl cut, and even thicker eyebrows then Lee appeared in the most ridiculous pose any of Team 7 had ever seen.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto's jaws dropped onto the floor.

"Super thick..."

"Super weird..."

"Those are the most impressive eyebrows I've ever seen."

"Don't insult Gai-sensei!" Lee yelled furiously.

There was a loud "You fool!" and Lee was sent flying. His sensei then kneeled in front of him and tears began to flow down both of their eyes. And then they hugged.

Naruto turned towards his teammates. "You know... that's some good stuff."

Sasuke violently grabbed Naruto. "NO WAY! Too dangerous! Way too dangerous!"

"H-He's looking at us," Sakura informed.

"Hey you guys, How's Kakashi sensei doing?"

Sakura spoke cautiously. "You know Kakashi-sensei?"

"Know him..." The thick eyebrowed sensei disappeared from their sight and reappeared behind them. "I prefer people to refer to us as eternal rivals. 50 wins and 49 losses, I'm stronger than Kakashi." He stuck his thumb up and grinned.

"See! Gai-sensei is incredible," Lee boasted.

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"So you three finally came. By the way this is a team test."

Naruto took one glance at Kakashi and laughed.

"What?"

Sakura grinned evilly. "We heard that a certain green spandex wearing sensei is beating you 50 to 49."

"Weak," Sasuke commented.

Kakashi felt a vein pop. "You brats just go in already."

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"Holy crap! That's a lot of people," Naruto commented loudly.

"Sasuke-kun!" came a high-pitched voice. "You're late!"

A blonde haired, blue-eyed kunoichi jumped on Sasuke's back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I haven't seen you for a while so I've been waiting in excitement!"

Sasuke glared at the girl and then sent a look at Sakura. Sakura grinned at the distress call.

"Ino-pig get off of Sasuke. You're irritating him," Sakura commanded with a wide smile on her face.

Ino smiled back and released her captive. "Why if it isn't forehead?"

"You guys are taking this stupid test too? Don't die." Came an apathetic voice.

Naruto looked at the pineapple headed male and his companion who was eating beside him. "Shikimaru! Choji!"

"Yahoo! Found you," came a male voice.

"H-hello," a shy voice greeted.

"Yo Kiba! Shino! Hinata-chan! Long time no see," Naruto called enthusiastically.

"Geez, you guys too?" Shikamaru questioned.

Kiba grinned. "All 9 of us rookie genin are taking the exam, huh. I wonder how far we'll get... eh Sasuke?"

Sasuke smirked, "We'll obviously be the only ones left in the end."

"Hey you guys."

The group turned to look at an older glasses wearing boy.

"You should be quiet. You all are rookies just out of the Academy right?"

"Who do you think you are?" Ino questioned.

"I'm Kabuto but you should look behind you."

The group looked to see three very intense looking shinobi.

"What about them?" Sasuke asked dully.

"They're from rain. They've got massive tempers so you should quiet down. Well, I guess I can't blame you, you're clueless rookies."

Sakura felt her eyebrow twitch. What was with this guys condescending tone?

Kabuto pulled out a deck of cards. "I'll share some info with you cute rookies with these nin-info cards."

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other. "Cute?" they mouthed, feeling slighly preturbed.

Kabuto pulled out the cards and proceeded to explain how they worked.

"Do you have individual data on people?" Sasuke asked curiously.

"You have anyone in mind?"

"Rock Lee and Gaara."

Kabuto pushed his chakra into the cards and their information appeared.

"Rock Lee. He's a year older than you guys. He's completed 20 D-ranked and 12 C-ranked missions. His taijutsu is really great but nothing else is impressive about him.

Gaara of the desert. I don't have much on him since he's from sand but he's completed 8 C-rank missions and one B-ranked. Wow, a B-rank for a genin. It also seems like he returned from all his missions without even a scratch."

Naruto began shaking.

"Hey is he ok," Shikamaru whispered to Sasuke.

Sasuke sighed and Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose waiting for the inevitable.

Suddenly a hand grabbed the two of them.

"My name's Naruto Uzumaki and these are my teammates, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. We're gonna kick your asses! Believe it bastards!"

"Did you really need to call all these people bastards?" Sakura asked before smiling.

Sasuke smirked at their audience.

There was a loud bang and smoke appeared iat the front of the room. "Quiet down you worthless bastards!"

Sakura rolled her eyes. Again with the bastards.

A man with a long scar running around his face and several other ninja appeared. "Thanks for waiting, I'm Ibiki Morino, your first examiner. Let me warn you that there will be no fighting without the permission of the examiner. Even if you get permission to fight, killing your opponent will not be tolerated. Those pigs who disobey me will be failed immediately. Am I clear?"

The room nodded silently.

"We will now start the first test."

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"Ok I can do this," Naruto cheered to himself.

He looked at the first question a cryptogram... Skip! Second question... Third question... Fourth question... Naruto began to sweat profusely. Oh Shit.

Sakura looked down at the test. There was no way any normal genin would be able to answer these question, except for herself anyways. There had to be a hidden meaning to this test. Sakura closed her eyes to think for a moment. Oh! She looked up and smirked at the test examiner. An information gathering test. Clever.

Sasuke smirked and activated his sharingan. Too easy.

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"Naruto you can look at my paper," Hinata mouthed.

Naruto seemed to contemplate it for awhile before mouthing, "No thank you. An incredible ninja like me doesn't need to cheat."

Hinata looked unsure.

"Besides," he continued to mouth. "If you helped me cheat you could get in trouble too."

Naruto looked back down at the test. "Question 10: This question will be revealed 45 minutes after the test begins. Listen to the examiner closely before answering."

He closed his eyes. He was just gonna have to risk it.

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"Ok we'll now start the 10th question."

Naruto tensed. This was his last chance.

"First I'd like to go over the added rules for this question. These are the rules of desperation..."

"Rules of desperation?" Sasuke wondered.

"First, for this tenth question... you must decide whether you will take it or not."

"Choose? What happens if we choose not to?" Someone asked.

"If you choose not to, your points will be reduced to zero and you fail! Along with your two teammates."

"The of course we will decide to take the question!" People yelled.

"And now... The other rule. If you choose to take it and answer incorrectly... That person will lose the right to take the chunin selection exam again."

"What kind of stupid rule is that? There are guys who have taken the exam before!" Kiba questioned.

Dark chuckles filled the room. "You guys were unlucky. This year... It's my rules. But! I'm giving you a way out."

There was a sound of confusion.

"Those that aren't confident can chose not to take it... and try again next year."

The air in the classroom tensed.

"Now let's begin...The 10th question. Those that do not wish to take it, raise your hand. Once your number is confirmed leave."

People began to drop out left and right.

Naruto shook and began to raise his hand before slamming it back down on the desk. "Don't underestimate me! I will not run! I'll take it even if I'm a genin forever. I'll freaking will myself into becoming Hokage if I need to so I don't care. I'm not afraid dammit!"

Ibiki kept a stern face. "I'll ask you again. Your life is riding on this decision. This is your last chance to quit."

Naruto smirked determinedly. "I follow my unbending words...That's my ninja way."

"Good decisions. Now everyone still remaining..."

The was a loud unified gulp.

"I congratulate you on passing the first test!"

"What about the 10th question?" Someone asked.

"The 10th question was to answer whether or not you wanted to take the 10th question," Ibiki answered with a wide smile.

"Well then what about questions 1-9?"

"Those were to test your information gathering ability. Those who blatantly cheated failed of course because..." Ibiki removed his head-piece to reveal gruesome scars. "At times information is more important than life and on missions and the battlefield, people risk their lives to get their hands on it."

"But I still don't understand the final question!"

"The 10th question is the true purpose of this test. The ability to be courageous and survive hardship. This is the ability needed to become a chunin captain. Those who can't put their destinies and cling on to the uncertain future are pieces of trash and have no right to become chunin! That's how I feel."

"Anyways," Ibiki began again with a smile. "You made it through the first chunin selection exam. I wish you guys luck on the next one."

Suddenly a black figure broke into the room and sent shards of glass everywhere. The black thing unfurled to reveal a message and a women.

"You guys! This is no time to be celebrating! I'm the examiner for the second test Anko Mitarashi! Now Let's go! Follow me!"

* * *

Done! Not much to say other than that I hope you enjoyed that. As always reviews are very much appreciated! Have a nice day!

-Butterfly


	8. Chapter 8

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

Hello everyone! Sorry that this one was so late. I'm just gonna let you enjoy this chapter now. Bye.

-Butterfly

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**The Chunin Exams Part 2: The Forest of Death**

"Welcome to the stage for the second test, Practice Area 44. Also known as 'The Forest of Death'."

Naruto's face twisted in disgust as he looked at The Forest of Death. "It's been two years and this place still looks like hell."

Sasuke nodded in agreement. Yes, it had been two years since they had gotten lost in there. It was so stupid really. Right before Raine had went on a mission she had told them about practice area 44 and made a joking comment about how the three of them wouldn't last a day in there. Being the headstrong kids that they were, they had broken in and wandered a kilometer in and had gotten lost. No one knew they were missing since Raine was out on a mission so, they had ended up wandering around in there for two weeks until Raine and her chunin team had found them. During that time they had encountered and battled every creature in the forest and explored every nook and cranny, they would easily make it through the forest this time.

"Hey Sasuke where's Sakura?"

Sasuke blinked and then turned his head to look around. What?!

Sasuke was about to freak out until he saw a familiar trail of cherry blossom petals that were now appearing next to him. They swirled around for a good 30 seconds until they finally dissipated, revealing a pink haired, green-eyed kunoichi.

"Where were you?"

A wide smile appeared on Sakura's face and her eyes gleamed with mischief. "I'll tell you in a little bit."

The boys eyed her suspiciously but dropped the subject since Anko had decided to speak again.

"Everyone take this form and sign it. It's an agreement form stating that I'm not liable for any deaths. Anyways, this test is a survival test," Anko began as she unrolled a scroll containing a map.

"You see this tower in the middle? That's 10km in. You have 5 days to make it there with one Heaven scroll and one Earth scroll with ALL of your team. Half of you will be given Heaven scrolls and the other half Earth so you're gonna need to fight each other to get one. You may use any weapon and jutsu you want and killing is perfectly acceptable. The only rule is that you may not look inside the Heaven and Earth scroll until you make it to the tower. Understood?"

"What happens if you do?" Sakura questioned.

"Well... that's a surprise. Anyways go exchange your forms for a scroll and get to a gate. Let's get this started!"

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"I cannot believe that you actually lost to them."

Sakura pointed to the three Rain genin that were now passed out and bound to the base of one of the many large trees in the Forest of Death.

Naruto shrugged off the ropes that were binding him and gave Sakura and Sasuke a sheepish look.

"Yeah sorry about that. I wasn't paying attention but! At least we now have both a Heaven and an Earth scroll. We can now just make a mad dash to the tower. No need to go hunting, you know?"

Sasuke nodded his head. Although it was totally and utterly embarrassing that Naruto had actually been defeated by these pathetic genins, it had saved them a lot of time.

"The tower's another 8Km away so we should probably make it there in twenty minutes as long as we don't run into any other ninjas."

"Well it's too late for that it seems," Sakura muttered as she threw a senbon at a nearby bush.

There was a low and ominous chuckle and a lone long-haired Grass-nin appeared. Sasuke and Naruto visibly relaxed when they realized that there was only one nin. Naruto had even put his kunai away.

"Dude. Your whole team wouldn't have stood a chance against us. What are you doing her by yourself?"

The Grass-nin raised his head and Sakura froze in fear. She felt the familiar feeling of her breath catching in the back of her throat and the inability to breathe. Sakura felt herself fall to her knees due to the malicious Ki. It was honestly unlike anything she had felt before. It made Zabuza's deadly Ki feel like a gentle breeze. She distantly registered the sound of Sasuke throwing up, Naruto sobbing, and her own ragged and heavy breaths. She also registered that a long snake-like tongue had just snatched both the Heaven and the Earth scrolls from Sasuke and Naruto's person.

Sakura tried her best to calm her ragged and short breathing. She needed to get the hell out of this trance so that she could at least try to put up a fight. Sakura closed her eyes and began to remember the song that Raine would always sing.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto were anything but normal and when they were younger were always plagued with constant nightmares. All of them reacted differently to their nightmares. Naruto would cry, sometimes quietly or sometimes loudly and without restraint. Sasuke's reaction was always violent. He would kick, scream, cry out, thrash around, he would do anything and everything. Sakura's reaction was quiet but, dangerous. She would hyperventilate, like she was doing now.

One night, after a month of living together, all three of them had fallen asleep in the living/training room along with Raine. For whatever reason, that night was also the unlucky night that all three of them were plagued with their violent nightmares. That night was also the night that would set their little ritual.

As far as Sakura knew, Raine was startled awake due to Sasuke's violent thrashing and Naruto's loud sobs. She had been shocked and worried to see that all of them were experiencing vivid night terrors and tried to shake all of them awake and repeatedly called out to them. However, none of that worked so Raine calmed herself down and moved them so that they were all resting their heads on her small thighs somehow. Raine then began to lightly stroke their hair and sing them a short lullaby that she used to hear one of the very old gypsy men sing. For whatever reason the lullaby had calmed all of them down and woken them up. After that, Raine picked up a habit of staying up a few hours after everyone had fallen asleep and comforting whoever was having a nightmare by caressing their hair and quietly singing the lullaby. The nightmares died down considerably and the lullaby became a life line that all of them knew and sang when either they needed to calm down themselves or one of the others needed to be calmed.

Sakura began to sing quietly, but loud enough that Naruto and Sasuke heard as well. Her voice trembled slightly.

_Home is behind, the world ahead_  
_And there are many paths to tread_  
_Through shadow, to the edge of night_  
_Until the stars are all alight_

_Mist and shadow_  
_Cloud and shade_  
_All shall fade_  
_All shall fade_

Sakura felt all of her fears dissipate and listened as Naruto's and Sasuke's breathing evened along with her own. With her new courage, Sakura grabbed both Naruto and Sasuke's hands and squeezed them in a comforting and reassuring manner. Both boys squeezed back and the three of them slowly stood up.

"That guy's something else." Sasuke whispered. His voice was now unreasonably horse and he personally felt unbelievably exhausted.

Naruto nodded and eyed the Grass-nin warily and then looked back to his teammates.

"We've... We've got to beat this guy. I doubt that he'll let us run and I also doubt that we'll find a chance to sneak away."

Sakura smiled softly, feeling her usual spunk and spitfire returning to her spirit.

"Well then...Let's kick some ass shall we boys?"

Sasuke chuckled in his usual, boyishly low voice and Naruto grinned his usual ear to ear grin. Naruto thrusted a fist towards the grass-nin.

"Prepare for doom Grass Man! Team 7 aint scared of you!"

Naruto began the seals for his kage bunshin. He rapidly formed twenty bunshins and went on the offensive. He kicked, punched, and even threw a few kunai but, none of them seemed to land. A few of his clones were sacrificed as Sasuke sent a surprise fireball at the Grass-nin. Unfortunately the only damaged that it had dealt was to the Earth and the Grass-nin's hair however, Sakura appeared behind the Grass-nin while he was in midair and stabbed a kunai into his right arm, eliciting a hiss and a rough kick to the gut that sent her flying into a tree. Sakura cried out in pain. The bark from the tree had shallowly stabbed her in a few places and she was sure to have a broken rib. Meanwhile Sasuke had gotten caught by the Grass-nin's snake summon and was currently stuck in its grasp. This all enraged Naruto and he felt a certain red chakra filter through his system. He felt his canines and nails grow and if he was sure that if he were to look in a mirror he was sure to see red feral eyes staring back.

Naruto watched as a large snake wiped out the rest of his clones with its head as it continued to slowly squeeze Sasuke, breaking the bones in his arms. Naruto roared and jumped up and sent an unintentionally chakra enhanced punch the top of the snake's head, slamming it straight into the forest floor Due to the impact of Naruto's punch the snake was forced to drop Sasuke, into a waiting Sakura's arms. Naruto continued to fight the Grass-nin while Sakura dragged both herself and Sasuke out of the way. Her hands began to glow a neon green and she began to heal Sasuke's injuries first.

Naruto had disposed of the snake for the most part and was doing quite well against the Grass-nin but his movements and reactions began to slow down due to all the injuries he was sustaining. Naruto clenched his teeth as he felt another kunai ram itself straight into his thigh. He tried his best to retreat but, his injured leg gave out on him giving the strange Grass-nin an opportunity to strike.

The Grass-nin wrapped his long tongue around Naruto and pulled him so that he was suspended in front of him. Naruto struggled.

"Get your nasty tongue off of me! This is super gross and totally unhygienic."

"Quiet Kyuubi child."

Naruto's eyes widened and he glared at the older Nin.

"Who the hell are you and how do you know that?"

The Grass-nin said nothing and began to lift Naruto's shirt with his tongue. Naruto's yelling and struggling increased but, the Grass-nin's grip on him did not falter. The Grass-nin's fingertips began to glow brightly.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Naruto's eyes widened and his voice caught in his throat as the Grass-nin's five fingers were slammed into his stomach over the Kyuubi's seal. His energy began to drain away and he felt all the red chakra disappear.

"Naruto!"

Sakura quickly stopped her work on Sasuke and sent her chakra to her legs. She dashed and caught Naruto right before his limp body could collide with a tree and injure itself even more. She looked down at her blonde haired teammate worriedly and then glared right at the snake bastard.

"What the hell did you do?!"

The Grass-nin promptly ignored but made a slightly surprised face. He was currently being burnt alive by Sasuke's Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu. Sakura just about screamed in horror once the fires diminished, at the sight of the Grass-nin. His 'skin' was now dripping off of his face to reveal a different face. The 'Grass-nin' ripped off the left over skin and turned to face at a shocked Sharingan eyed Sasuke.

"You're definitely Itachi's brother...but...you have more potential."

At the sound of 'His' name, Sasuke recovered from his shock.

"Who the fuck are you!? What the hell do you know about Itachi?!"

Sakura shook slightly as a chill crept up her spine. She had a bad feeling. She quickly reached for her senbons and threw them at the 'Grass nin' whilst simultaneously yelling for Sasuke to run away. However, her warnings and senbon were a moments to late.

"AUGHHH!"

Sasuke felt the 'Grass-nin' remove his fangs from his neck. He immediately clutched at his neck and crumbled to the ground and began to scratch at the location. It burned and the pain only seemed to intensify with each passing second. Sasuke faintly felt a presence appear next to him.

"Who the fuck are you and what'd you do to Sasuke and Naruto? ANSWER ME!"

The 'Grass-nin' chuckled and pulled the three senbon out of his neck and threw them back at Sakura. They skimmed the sides of her neck and cut large and random parts of her hair off. Sakura's eyes widened in shock, she hadn't even seen them coming.

"You've not only stabbed me with a kunai but, you've also stabbed me with senbons...impressive. As a reward I shall tell you... My name is Orochimaru and I simply gave your two teammates a present. Now..."

Orochimaru pulled out the two scrolls from inside his stomach and burned them in both hands. He looked at Sasuke's glaring and pain filled eyes.

"Pass this exam Sasuke-kun and I will tell you all you want to know."

He then looked at Sakura.

"Girl...Take care of my prize. I wouldn't want him to be too damaged when he comes to me."

He disappeared, leaving a now incapacitated Sasuke and a sickened Sakura. Sakura was tempted to fall over and pass out next to her teammates but, slung Sasuke over her left shoulder and carried Naruto under her right arm. It had now been an hour since the second test had started and it would take her at least thirty minutes to navigate through the forest and reach the tower while carrying both of her incapacitated teammates. Sakura winced at the pain in her stomach.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath and released it. She would do it. It would be much safer to heal the two of them in the tower and they would be able to get over four days of peaceful rest. Sakura quickly looked down her loose red tank top and smirked slightly at the sight of the two scrolls that were strapped to her stomach. She had stolen a Heaven and an Earth scroll before the start of the test and she had wanted to show them off earlier but, she was glad that she hadn't. If she had, they would be burnt to a crisp like the other two.

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.

Sakura leaped one last time and arrived in front of the tower doors. She crumpled to the ground, dropping her teammates, and hissed in pain. She had only a fourth of her chakra left and her body hurt all over. Running at max speed through the infamous Forest of Death was one thing but, having to do so while carrying your two passed out teammates and injured was another thing entirely. She couldn't wait to step through those damn doors, open those stupid scrolls and then tend to her and her team's wounds. She couldn't wait to take a long nap afterwards as well.

"Holy crap! There's someone here before us."

Sakura immediately tensed and turned towards the sound of the male voice. Behind her were the three sand ninjas that she, Sasuke, and Naruto had met the day before the Chunin exams. She immediately glared and reached for her senbons.

"Woah, woah relax. We're not here to fight you. The tower's neutral grounds, remember?" The blonde one spoke.

Sakura dropped her glare but kept her body tense and ready for action. They were here awfully early and that red-head was completely spotless, that was suspicious. That boy had already been awfully suspicious when they had first met and now... To be frank he was slightly terrifying to look at right now. He had on that apathetic face but, his eyes seemed to show a hint of something that she was seeing a lot of lately, blood lust, and those blood lust filled eyes were currently staring down at her and her incapacitated teammates.

"They're not dead?"

Sakura sent a malicious glare at the red-head and growled. She picked up both of her teammates once again and held them protectively.

The redhead looked at her with eyes filled with what seemed to be slight amusement and much more deadly blood lust. She could feel it, he wanted to kill all three of them right now. In any normal circumstance Sakura would have probably sent the kid falling to the ground with one of her signature punches for looking at her like that and saying something like that but, she couldn't really do that since she was holding both of her teammates and since she was injured. Besides, that gourd was suspicious and three versus a very tired one didn't sound too pleasing.

Sakura sent one last glare and stood up. She turned away from them and walked towards the doors. She was about to open the door herself when a pale hand reached out and opened it for her. Sakura looked up suspiciously into his sea-foam green eyes. She was tempted to start accusing him of things but, decided to do as Sasuke's well-mannered self would do. She bowed her head just ever so slightly.

"Thank you very much."

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.

"Are you sure the mark isn't acting up anymore?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Raine that was one time when I woke up. I've got everything under control now besides Kakashi did that seal thing remember?"

Raine gave him a look of disbelief but didn't press the subject matter.

"And you. Are you all good?"

Sakura smiled.

"Well I haven't got a single broken bone left and I've been fed and have slept 10 wonderful hours. So yeah, I'm good."

Raine narrowed her eyes slightly yet smiled anyways. She grabbed Sakura's red ribbon and tied it in the girl's now chin length hair.

"And lastly you, do you feel anything weird? Do you feel anything with the Kyuubi?"

Naruto huffed. "Nothing's wrong with me! I'm the healthiest of all three of us."

"Raine stop worrying. Sakura does enough of it as is," Sasuke commented.

Sakura lightly smacked him. "You two just don't worry enough about yourselves."

"Says the one who carried us all the way over to the tower with three broken ribs AND practically died of chakra exhaustion because she wouldn't stop healing us," Sasuke rebutted.

"Oh? So you'd rather me just leave you out in forest half dead?!"

"Quit it! We need to go to the main room. Geez, and they all say I'm the immature one," Naruto ranted.

Sakura and Sasuke glared lightly at each other before hugging slightly as a sign of making up.

The foursome exited the room and began walking.

"By the way are you allowed to be here?" Naruto asked nonchalantly.

"Well, technically no but the Hokage owed me for all the difficult missions I've been on lately so I'm here as a 'bodyguard' and for something else..."

Sasuke glanced at the white-haired girl suspiciously but, stopped when he saw that her left leg was still bandaged and that the wound on her face was gone . "Hey, you never did tell us about how you got all those wounds when we came back from mist,"

"Oh yeah those? It's a good story really especially since it kinda has to do with your mist mission but, we'll have to save that for another time since we're here."

Raine ruffled their hair and went to stand behind the Hokage.

"You wouldn't have been playing favorites by helping them cheat somehow now, would you Raine?" Sarutobi asked.

Raine rolled her eyes but smiled. "Aw come on now. Have some faith in me, I was just checking on their conditions."

"And," Sarutobi asked seriously.

Raine moved so that only the Hokage could hear her.

"He claims that he's fine and that the mark isn't acting up but, I've seen him clutch his neck a few times."

The Hokage grunted, "We'll leave him be but if the curse begins opening and releasing power than I'll leave it to you to stop him. Understood... Seiryuu-taichou?"

Raine closed her eyes. "Your wish is my command, Sandaime Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi nodded in approval and Raine moved to her spot to his left.

"Congratulations on making it here now... Listen up! The Hokage is going to inform you about the third test."

"Yes well, I'd like to now explain the third test but... Well, I'll her explain to you."

Raine stepped forward and smiled. "Hello everyone, I'm Raine and I'll be your referee for the preliminary."

"Preliminary?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yes, It seems like the first and second test have both been a tad too easy this year and we just have too many people remaining. The third test has a limited time limit so we're just unable to fit you all in. So anyway, those who are not feeling well and those who feel like quitting please step forward now since we will be starting immediately."

"..."

"Um... I'm going to quit."

"Let's see your Kabuto Yakushi from the leaf, right? You may leave now."

"Oh! By the way from now on it'll be individual battles so raise you hand based on your own judgement. So anyone?"

"..."

"Ok since no one else wants to resign we'll begin. Like I said before this is one on one so fight like you would in the field. Since we have 20 contestants, we'll have 10 matches and the winners will move on to the third test. There are basically no rules. The fight continues until one of you dies, is knocked out, or admits your defeat but, if I establish a clear winner I'll personally jump in and stop things since there's no need to pointlessly increase the amount of corpses.

There was a scoff. "You're gonna jump in to stop one of us? How old are girly? Are you even a chunin?"

Raine glanced at the boy and tilted her head.

"Yoroi Akado, right? It would be quite unwise of you to question my abilities," Raine answered with an icy smile.

He shivered.

"What an idiot," Sasuke commented. Naruto and Sakura nodded in agreement.

"Anyone else have any qualms with my qualifications? No? Alright then, This electric scoreboard will show the match-ups for each battle. Let's announce the two names of the first fight, ok?"

The board beeped until it finally stopped. "Oh?" Raine thought inwardly.

"Sasuke Uchiha and Yoroi Akado please stay down here while the rest of you please move to the upper levels."

Raine watched as Kakashi spoke to Sasuke, most likely about the mark. She allowed them to talk for a few more seconds before interrupting. "Sensei-chan, Sasuke-kun let's not dilly dally, ok?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and Kakashi smiled. "Sorry Referee-chan. I was just wishing my cute student good luck."

Raine cracked a grin. "Well isn't that sweet. Now move along."

Everyone finally made it onto to the upper levels.

"Okay are you two ready? Begin!"

Sasuke rushed his opponent and smirked as he pinned him into a choke hold. He suddenly grunted in pain. His chakra was being absorbed. Sasuke quickly released Yoroi and preformed two backflips to get away. Sasuke glared at the now cockily grinning Yoroi.

Sasuke dodged a few punches and bit his lip and hurridly flipped away when he felt Yoroi make slight contact. He need to do something but what?

"Lame! Is that all you can do Sasuke? Dodge?"

Sasuke looked up to glare at Naruto when he noticed Rock Lee standing next to him. A light bulb went off in his head. Taijustsu! Another light bulb went off as he remembered that he had recorded Lee's movements with his Sharingan. He was definitely going to have to thank Lee for this later.

Sasuke slid right below Yoroi and kicked him up into the air. He floated underneath him. Sasuke was about to attack when he the curse began to leak. He gritted his teeth. "Fucking go back," he willed and much to his relief it went away. He then smirked. It was time to end this, quick and easy.

Sasuke sent a succession of of 3 hard kicks and ended it with Hayabusa Otoshi. Slowly Sasuke, stood back up. He smirked at Raine and indicated for her to come and check on Yoroi's condition.

Raine cheered inwardly but kept a serious expression. She walked up to Yoroi, tempted to kick him in the face for questioning her authority, and checked his consciousness.

"Yoroi Akado is no longer in a position to fight and therefore the winner of the first match, Sasuke Uchiha has passed the prelims!"

Sakura and Naruto cheered loudly but decided to tease Sasuke as well.

"0 points for flashiness and style," Naruto yelled.

"-10 points for originality. We all know where you go that move from," Sakura finished.

Sasuke flipped them the bird.

"Oh there we go. 1 point for flashiness and style," Naruto laughed.

Sasuke leisurely made his way up the stairs and over to his teammates.

"I can't wait to critique your scores."

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Naruto shivered at the dismembered arm covered in bugs. "Ew."

Sakura wore the same expression. "Super ew."

"It's kind of cool," Sasuke admitted. "Although I do wonder where all the bugs came from. Are they a summon?"

"Aburame's are one of the four noble clans of Konohagakure. At birth, members are offered a special breed of insects to nest, residing just under their host's skin," Kakashi informed dully.

Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto made a face.

"Okay I take that back. Ew."

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"The winner is Kankuro of the sand."

"You and Sasuke totally owe me all I can eat Ramen! I told you that he used a creepy puppet," Naruto smirked.

"I should have known," Sasuke moaned.

Sakura pouted. "Ugh! This sucks!"

"Oh, Sakura you should look at the screen," Kakashi pointed out.

Sakura looked up. You have go to be kidding.

Sakura frowned immensely. "That sucks even more, I don't want to fight my best friend!"

Naruto rubbed a reassuring hand on her back. "She'll forgive you if you win but, if you don't go all out that'll offend her okay?"

Sasuke ruffled her hair. "Besides you learned that one move from Raine right? So technically you can just do this really quick and easily although... I won't give you any style points."

Sakura rolled her eyes and smirked. "I'm gonna make this quick and painless AND I'm gonna do it in style."

Sakura flipped off the railing and gracefully landed below in a crouched position earning a loud whistle from Naruto. She then looked over at Raine and winked. Raine kept a professional expression with a hint of amusement in her eye. She then glanced at Ino and sent her a taunting look.

"Ino Yamanaka, Sakura Haruno Begin."

Ino threw a few shurikens and kunai which Sakura easily deflected and after a good minute of just dodging the projectiles that came her way Sakura decided that it was time for her to strike. She could only hold this jutsu for a little less than a minute but that would be enough.

As Ino sent more weapons at Sakura, Sakura began to make hand signs whilst dodging all the weapons, surprising Ino and everyone else in the room.

"Genjutsu shibari!"

Ino froze. Sakura pulled then sauntered over to Ino. Once she had made her way behind Ino, Sakura pulled out a kunai and regally placed it at Ino's neck. Then she very dramatically made the motion of slicing Ino's neck open without actually harming her good friend.

Sakura then looked over to Raine, who allowed the corners of her mouth to quirk in an amused smile. "Ino Yamanaka would have just been killed. Sakura Haruno wins."

Sakura let out a huge sigh of relief as she felt her genjutsu dissipate on its own. It seemed that 45 seconds was the longest that she could hold it for.

Ino blinked before glaring at Sakura. "You suck." She then sent a knowing glare at Raine as well. "You suck too."

Raine chuckled lightly and Sakura smiled, "You can come over for a girls night and tell me all about how much you hate us when this is done."

Ino grinned. "Make it a day of shopping and you have yourself a deal."

The two girls laughed and gave each other a hug as they made their way to the stairs. Sakura reached her group with Ino and saw that Sasuke was attempting to glare at her.

"What?"

"What the heck?! Did you just have to win in such a badass way?"

Sakura laughed and Ino rolled her eyes as she made her way over to her own team that was standing beside Team Kakashi.

"Good try Ino. Who would have known that Kakashi would have taught Sakura a B class jutsu," Asuma comforted.

Ino scoffed. "Puh-lease you think he taught her that?" She point a finger at Kakashi who had his hands up in an 'I surrender' position. She then pointed over to Raine who was currently watching over Temari's and Tenten's match. "That evil lady over there taught her that. I know without a doubt that she did."

Naruto lightly smacked Ino's hand.

"Hey! Don't point and talk about Raine-nee like that. It's rude," He hissed.

Team Gai and Team Asuma sent a confused look at them.

"Raine-nee?" Shikamaru questioned. "You all know the referee?"

Both Gai and Asuma discreetly moved towards Kakashi.

"Isn't that the girl who calmed Iruka down during nomination?" Asuma questioned.

"How odd... I know all the Jounins and special Jounins how come I've never seen her?" Gai questioned as well.

Kakashi sighed. "Look real closely at that shoulder that's slightly exposed due to the size of her sweater. You should be able to see part of it."

Gai and Asuma squinted their eyes in attempt to see better. They noticed the top of a very familiar pattern.

"Ah. I see," Asuma acknowledge. "In this time of peace it's quite odd to see someone so young in that. What is one of those doing here though?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Hey you three munchkins."

The members of Team 7 stopped their explanations and glared slightly at Kakashi.

"What is Onee-san doing here anyways?"

The three of them looked at each other and quirked a brow and then whispered to each other for a bit. After deciding that they weren't going to be giving any important information away, Sasuke spoke.

"We're not entirely sure either but... Nee-san told us that the Hokage owed her since she'd been going on so many difficult missions so, she got the easy mission of being the Hokage's bodyguard and apparently assisting with the prelims."

"Hold on isn't it kind of unfair that you guys have such a close relationship with the referee," Choji questioned, effectively distracting the three jounin from pursuing their question.

Sakura was about to defend them when they were interrupted by Raine loudly announcing the winner.

"The winner is Temari Sabaku."

The three teams looked down to see every weapon in existence all over the floor and Tenten herself lying unconsciously on top of Temari's large fan. They all watched as Temari began to fling Tenten off of her fan.

"Tenten!" Lee yelled as he retrieved his fallen teammate before she could be thrown against the wall.

"Ugh, these guys are vicious," Naruto commented.

"More like barbaric. What kind of person tries to injure someone that's already incapacitated? Geez, no battle etiquette whatsoever," Sasuke ranted.

Sakura nodded her head. "Indeed those Sand-nin are something else. Although I'm kind of interested in that red head Gaara."

Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji all gave Sakura a look.

"Sakura... I know that you like to walk on the wild side but...he looks like someone who would beat his women," Naruto warned.

"I don't approve of barbarians. No," Sasuke commanded

"I don't-" Sakura began.

"Woah! Sakura you like him? EW! No way! Let me introduce you to someone else," Ino suggested.

"I do-"

"I will never understand women." Shikamaru speculated.

"I d-"

"Me niether," Choji agreeded.

"I-"

"I have to agree with Naruto and Sasuke on this one. Besides, I think you're a bit too young for long distance relationships. Those are a huge pain," Kakashi commented.

Sakura cracked her knuckles and gave each and everyone of the lump on their heads. "I'm gonna kill you guys! I'm interested in what's in his gourd you idiots!"

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"Wooo! Shikamaru you rule!" Choji and Ino cheered.

"Shikamaru's not that bad huh?" Naruto complimented.

"What are you trying to say about my teammate?" Ino cautioned.

"What Naruto means to say is wow! Shikamaru's a great tactician Ino," Sakura explained.

"He get's 1000 smartass points for that last comment though," Naruto declared.

"It's a good quote though," Sasuke acknowledged.

"Indeed, part of fighting is using your environment to your advantage. Shikamaru did a great job of that. You three need to take notes," Kakashi lectured.

The three of them rolled their eyes.

"Hey Naruto! It's your turn," Ino pointed out.

"Hell yeah! It's about time," Naruto hollered as he threw himself over the rail.

"Kiba! Get ready to have you ass kicked!" Naruto taunted

Raine let out a small sigh."Naruto Uzumaki, Kiba Inuzaka Begin!"

"Naruto you think you can kick my ass? You've been the weakest of that little group of yours since forever," Kiba teased.

Naruto felt his eyebrow twitch and turned to look up at Sakura and Sasuke.

"Screw flashiness and style points. I'm ending it quickly."

Kiba glared. "Is that so? Akamaru let's reck him."

Akamaru suddenly turned red and jumped on his back and turned into Kiba.

"Jujin Bunshin!"

Naruto's face faltered. "Well crap I wasn't expecting that."

"Gatsuga!"

Naruto's eyes widened and then he smirked. He pooled a bunch of chakra to his feet and jumped way up.

"My turn!"

He quickly made 20 kage bunshins and rained hundreds of kunai on Kiba and Akamaru before falling back down. Akamaru had returned to his usual puppy form and was passed out whist Kiba was heavily injured and barely standing.

"Give up," the twenty plus Naruto's commanded.

Kiba stood firm. "Never."

The twenty plus Naruto's sighed and all began to crack their knuckles.

"I warned you dude."

Once the twenty plus Naruto's finished beating Kiba to bits they all simultaneously puffed away in a large cloud of white smoke. Naruto them sent a satisfied smirked at Raine who flashed him a quick smile.

"The winner is Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto ran up the stairs and towards the group.

"So? What's my score?"

Sasuke and Sakura both wore a disapproving look on their faces and both were slowly shaking their heads although, Sakura was clearly biting her cheek in an attempt to not laugh.

"-1000 points. You beat a poor innocent puppy up. ," Sasuke declared.

"That's so wrong," Sakura finished.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Innocent puppy my ass."

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"Come on Hinata!" Sakura cheered.

"You can do it." Sasuke encouraged.

"HINATA! Kick that bastard's ass!" Naruto hollered as he held onto the railing with a death grip.

The threesome watched furiously as Neji showed no mercy. Hinata fell over but, defiantly stood back up due to Team 7's cheering.

Something inside of Neji snapped. "You cannot change your destiny!"

All the leaf jounin began to jump down but realized they were unneeded when they saw that Raine was easily holding him back. "That is enough, Neji Hyuuga."

Hinata gasped loudly and collapsed into Naruto and Sasuke who had jumped seconds after the jounin. Sakura worriedly eyed the silver eyed girl.

"Her color's not good."

Sakura assessed Hinata's injuries and paled. Was he trying to kill her?! "We need medial attention now! She got about 10 minutes!"

Raine released Neji and quickly called for the medics.

Naruto bent down and grabbed some of Hinata's blood and turned to glare at Neji with his fist full of her blood stretched out. "You, I swear on her blood that I'm going to kick your ass."

Neji sneered. "You're just like her... Once a loser always a loser. What can a loser like you ever do?"

Sakura sent a quck senbon at Neji which he deflected with a kunai.

"Shut the hell up before** WE **shut you, you whiny bastard."

Sakura and Sasuke quickly flanked Naruto's side and glared at Neji along with Naruto. Neji glared back and the atmosphere grew increasingly hostile.

"Hey now. Let's all go back upstairs, ok?" Kakashi suggested as he ushered them along.

Team 7 reluctantly agreed and made their ways back up the stairs with the males of Team Gai following behind. As they approached their spot next to Team 10 they watched as Choji was screaming some sort of mantra as he was watching the beeping scoreboard.

"OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOHHHHHHHHHHHHH SAFE!," Choji hollered once the names appeared.

Gaara Sabaku VS Rock Lee

"Now we can finally find out what's in that gourd. Kick some butt Lee," Naruto encouraged as the turned back towards Lee.

"Indeed. Best of luck Lee," Sasuke stated.

Sakura turned towards Lee and smiled brightly although here eyes showed a hiint of worry. "Good luck and be careful, neh?"

Lee beamed at the words of encouragements and was practically jumping off the walls due to Sakura's words. He promised to win and saluted the three of them before jumping off the railing. Sakura watched him jump and looked down.

She briefly looked over at Gaara and their eyes met. Sakura felt herself tremble slightly and looked away. Gaara... There was just something so very familiar about him. It wasn't that she felt like she had known him in the past somehow it was just... she felt like they had some sort of bond. It was the same kind of feeling when she had met Sasuke, Naruto, and Raine all those years ago. She also had the same feeling when it came to Kakashi. The only difference was that Gaara seemed to constantly radiate an "I'm-going-to-kill-you" aura. Sakura silently wondered if he always had such an aura.

Sakura felt a hand on her back and looked up. Sasuke and Naruto were looking at her with slightly worried expressions. Both of their eyes asked 'what's the matter?' Sakura shook her head and gave them a smile indicating that nothing was wrong. They were both about to press the issue when they heard the sounds of the match beginning.

They watched as sand flew out of the gourd without so much of a movement from Gaara. Sakura felt her eyes widen. Lee was in trouble.

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"You're his Jounin instructor right? It's difficult to have to say something like this but...with this body... He will never be able to live as a shinobi again."

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"The winner is Dosu Kinuta."

"Ugh... I wanna...eat...meat."

Naruto sweat dropped. "That's Choji alright."

"For real," Sasuke agreed.

Sakura silently nodded her head in agreement.

"Could all the winners please make their way down here?"

Team 7 along with Shikamaru and Neji casually began to make their way way down the stairs and they all began to stand in a line. Raine stepped forward and smiled.

"Congratulations on passing the prelims! First off, could you all please take a number and then show it to Ibiki-san?"

Raine stepped forward with a black bag and went down the line. They each blindly choose a sheet of paper with a number on it and showed it to Ibiki. Once Ibiki finished taking down each person's number ne nodded towards Raine to continue.

"Ok, now the Hokage-sama will explain what these numbers are for."

Raine stepped back and the Hokage stepped forward.

"Once again, congratulations on passing. The ten of you will precede to the third test. The third test will be a tournament style. Now before any of you question me, I'll have you know that you will be promoted to chunin based on your strategy and technique. You have a month to prepare, rest, gather information on the other opponents, ect, whatever you need to do. Now here are your opponents."

Sarutobi nodded towards Ibiki and Ibiki turned his clipboard to reveal the tournament line up.

Naruto Uzumaki VS Neji Hyuuga

Sakura Haruno VS Dosu Kinuta

Kankuro Sabaku VS Shino Aburame

Temari Sabaku VS Shikamaru Nara

Gaara Sabaku VS Sasuke Uchiha

_Afterwards..._

"Your house is quite large now that I've actually explored it. You guys have your own training area with targets and is this a fighting mat? Very fancy," Kakashi complimented as he looked through at their array of weapons.

"Yeah, we do taijutsu only on there. But, you didn't explore last time you came for breakfast Sensei?" Naruto asked as he tried to grab the television remote from Sasuke.

"I came through the back so all I saw was the kitchen dining area anyways what is this?"

Kakashi pulled up a slightly beaten up, life-sized model of himself. Droppy eye and everything.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto chuckled nervously.

"If I do remember correctly that's the kids Kakashi doll that they abuse when their mad at you, Oh and Naruto sleeps with it sometimes," Raine revealed as she stepped in.

"Raine-nee! What the heck you can't just tell him that!" Naruto complained loudly.

Raine ignored him. "Dinner's ready. I made yakisoba, onigiri, and sushi. I bought dango for dessert and I've also ordered some Ramen from Ichiraku's just for you Naruto.

"Ramen," Naruto squealed before jumping off the couch and running into the dining area.

Sakura and Sasuke followed in an equally hurried pace. They were starving and Raine had mentioned some of their favorite foods not to mention the fact that if they didn't hurry Naruto might just eat all the food. Raine silently moved to stand next to Kakashi who was still trying to comprehend the Kakashi doll.

"I don't know if I should be flattered that he sleeps with a life-sized doll of me, disturbed, or angry that they have a punching bag of me."

Raine laughed. "If it makes you fell better everyone has slept with it at least once. It's quite comfy since it's made of a pillow."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Everyone? Does that include you?"

Raine smiled widely but said nothing on the subject. "So... I've heard from Sasuke about what you did but I'd like to know the more technical standpoint."

Kakashi sighed. "I used the Fuja Hoin. The seal Orochimaru used is strong though, so the extent that it's suppressed is dependent on Sasuke's will. If he wishes to suppress it then it'll stay suppressed but, if he decides to submit and borrow its power than it'll leak and overtake him."

Kakashi watched as Raine smiled at him.

"Then he'll be fine. Sasuke wouldn't submit to the curse mark. He's like Sakura and Naruto, they all want to accomplish things with their own power and through hardwork. Besides, I overheard Sasuke and Naruto calling him a creepy child molesting snake man, I doubt that he'll ever want to borrow a 'child molesters' power. "

Kakashi gave the girl an eye smile. "Well then, if you think he'll be fine then I know he will. After all you know these kids way better than I do don't you Onee-san."

Raine linked her arm around Kakashi's and began to drag him to the dining area.

"Don't worry, you're getting there. After all, you've caught my eyes."

Suddenly Kakashi remembered what Sasuke had told him.

_ "Raine-nee is this weird gypsy girl that we met years ago during the gypsy festival. We caught her eyes so, she tricked us all into hanging out..."_

A mouth-watering fragrance pulled him out of his thoughts and he realized that he was currently sitting next to Naruto at the dining table with a large serving of yakisoba in front of him. Then it clicked. It seemed that he, The Great Copy Ninja, was in the midst of being tricked...and there was no way out.

"So Raine... Are you going to tell us about how you got those injuries now?" Sasuke asked as he took a bit of his onigiri.

Raine swallowed her sushi and took a sip of her tea before speaking.

"Well if I remember correctly you all have met Zabuza of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, right?"

They all nodded.

"Well... Have you heard of Jinpachi Munashi and Kushimaru Kuriarare?"

"You mean the Heartless Pair? I heard that they've been causing a lot of trouble in various areas in Water Country," Kakashi answered.

Raine smiled somewhat evilly.

"You mean they used to be causing a lot of trouble in Water Country."

* * *

We're done! Yay! Did any of you all recognize the song? No? Well it's Edge of Night, Pippin's song from Lord of the Rings. I just love how eerie yet calming it is. So...I hope that the fight scenes weren't too bad. Also I didn't write in Gaara and Lee's battle because it's too cool and you should honestly just go watch it online. I know that this one took forever to come out and I'm so sorry about that, my crappy laptop keeps dying on me before I've gotten the chance to save my progress. Sigh~ I've had to rewrite some parts over five times now. But, whatever I guess. As always I hope you enjoyed and reviews are totally appreciated. Bye bye!

-Butterfly


	9. Chapter 9

**Naruto: Ice Remix**

**All right, All right I know I'm unbelievably late, but school's started and I've been busy not to mention I've been a little uninspired. I was going to include all the matches but... yeah I don't know. I just wanted to get something out for now and I was tired of this just sitting here so yeah! There will probably be a few issues here and there, but I'll edit later? For now I hope you enjoy!**

**-Butterfly**

* * *

**The Chunin Exam Part 3: Training**

"I can't believe it... Why is Raine-nee training you and not me?" Naruto complained loudly.

Sakura smirked. "We've already discussed this, I asked first that's why. You know the rule. First come first serve."

Raine yawned quietly before lazily ruffling Naruto's hair. "Sorry kiddo. But at least Kakashi-san got Ebisu-san to come help you train."

Naruto huffed. "I don't need that closet pervert to help me. I beat him with my harem-jutsu."

Raine blinked. "Closet pervert? Harem-jutsu?"

Sakura gave Naruto a threatening look and the blonde boy cursed under his breath. Raine may have been a deadly ANBU captain but, she was unbelievable naïve when it came to 'relationships' and things of that nature and Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were doing the best that they could to protect her 'innocence', they even made sure that Kakashi didn't read that damned orange book around her.

"Nothing! I was just messing around Raine-nee."

"Oh...ok then?" Raine slowly replied, not quite convinced. What was this harem they spoke of? She would have to ask Sasuke or someone else later. "Well Sakura and I are going to go visit Lee in the hospital and then go off for a long training secession. We'll be back by the time the test starts. Take care of the house okay!?"

Naruto pouted again. "Yeah yeah. Go, leave me just like Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke."

Raine sighed. "Ebisu-san's really not that bad. He's a little prejudice sometimes but, he really is a good teacher and he's perfectly qualified. He is a special jounin after all. Besides..." The corners of Raine's mouth curved upwards just ever so slightly. "Maybe you'll get really lucky and someone even stronger that both Kakashi and I will go train you. You never know, the world is full of surprises."

Naruto looked at Raine in disbelief but, said nothing. Guilt tripping her just wasn't working.

_...Naruto's Training..._

"Naruto! No peeping in the women's bath house."

Naruto ran a hand through his blonde locks in frustration. He hadn't been peeping! Not on purpose anyway... He had merely wondered what was over there and that's when he saw all the beautiful naked women and what kind of hot-blooded hormonal teenager would he be if he hadn't lingered a bit? Totally not peeping.

"Why are we here?" He asked.

"Water walking lessons! I'll just-"

"What? You've got to be kidding! I already know how to do that!" Naruto huffed in annoyance.

Ebisu blinked. "Oh...Well then I guess we could-"

Ebisu wasn't able to finish that sentence since Naruto loudly yelled and pointed to something behind him.

Ebisu turned to see some old man giggling as he peeked into the women's bath house. He slowly pushed up his black sunglasses. "I don't know who you are but...I will not forgive such shameless behavior!"

Naruto watched in awe as the old pervert summoned a toad and knocked the closet pervert out.

"WOAH! What's with the frog? Who're you?"

The old pervert made a pose that was very reminiscent of Naruto's rejected genin photo minus the white and red-painted face.

"Thanks for asking! I'm Mt. Myoboku's holy master sennin also known as toad sennin, remember it!"

"Toad Sennin?" Naruto thought to himself. "Hold on if closet pervert's out who the hell was gonna train him?!"

"You! He was supposed to train me you know, but look what you did to him!" Naruto yelled pointing an accusing finger down at Ebisu's fallen form.

The perverted sennin began to pull something from underneath his clothes. "It's because he got in the way of my work. I'm a writer. I'm working on THIS novel."

Naruto stared at the orange book, taking in the happy couple on the front.

"AH! That is!"

The white-haired sennin grinned. "Oh! You know about this!"

Naruto made a disgusted face. "I know about it! That nasty perverted book! What the hell do you mean by work? Peeping into the women's bath at your age is totally a crime!"

The perverted sennin yelled back. "You fool! I am not a pervert! Peeping gives me inspiration to write better..."

Naruto huffed. "Who cares about that really? You interrupted my training! Granted that I don't want this guy to teach me...but still!" Naruto's eyes narrowed slyly. "Take responsibility and help with my training."

"I hate disrespectful and rude brats! and I don't like men!"

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the last comment and then smirked. "You don't like men eh?"

He made the ram seal. "Sexy no jutsu!"

The puff of smoke died down and in Naruto's place was a blonde bombshell.

"Now, will you help me with my training~."

A trail of blood ran down the perverted sennin's face and he shook his head vigorously.

"On one condition, you must stay like that the whole time."

Naruto immediately turned the jutsu off and gave a look of disgust and disbelief. "You really are a pervert!"

"I'm not a pervert!"

"Oh, yeah then what are you?!"

The sennin made an extremely disturbing face. "A super pervert!"

Naruto began to inch back. This guy was totally crazy.

There was loud laughter."It was a joke! I'll over look your training so what did you wanna know?"

Naruto eyed the sennin warily and answered. "I wanted to learn some wind jutsus or any badass jutsu really... Kakashi-sensei made me split all those leaves with my chakra but, he never taught me any. Although lately I can't seem to split any leaves after that happened."

The sennin quirked a brow and then began to lift Naruto's shirt off.

"WOAH! WOAH! What are you doing?"

He rolled his eyes. "Concentrate you chakra."

Naruto did as told and closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He suddenly felt the something being slammed into his stomach.

"Ouch! What the hell man?" Naruto cried indignantly as he rubbed his stomach.

"I just hit a few pressure points that will help relax you. Now go find a leaf and see if you can split it."

Naruto did as he was told and found a leaf. He held it in his palm and began to concentrate his chakra into splitting it. Once the leaf was now in two equal halves he raised it up for the sennin to see.

"Hm... Good. Okay I'll teach you a super powerful awesome technique. Meet me here tomorrow ok?"

.

.

.

"Woah! A summoning jutsu! It's not a wind one but I'll take it!"

"Yeah, yeah, sign your name on the contract kid."

_...The sounds of training for the next few weeks..._

"ANOTHER TADPOLE? YOU HAVE NO TALENT!"

"Shut up this one has hind legs!"

"YOU HAVE NO TALENT!"

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.

.

"Hey Ero-sennin I'm tired! What are we doing on top of this cliff?"

Naruto felt a push.

"AAUGHGHUGUGUHHHHHHGHHHH!"

Naruto desperately gathered chakra into his hands and leaned over to the side of the ravine. He tried his best to grab onto one of the spiky ledges but, he immediately slipped off. Naruto began to panic.

"Shit! Shit! If I don't do something I'll die. I'm gonna die!"

Naruto began to flail about until suddenly he was no longer falling. Naruto landed on a damp floor.

"What?"

Naruto suddenly heard a loud roaring and flinched. He felt a familiar red chakra.

"This must be..."

Naruto walked through a door and found himself in front of a large gate that was closed with a talisman with the word 'seal' on it. He heard a voice beckoning him closer.

"Kid...come her."

Naruto walked towards the gate but, immediately flew back when he saw the large claws coming towards him. They were stopped by the bars.

"Tch...I want to eat you but...this damn seal..."

Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"Puh-lease! As if I would ever let you eat me, Kyuubi!"

"Hmph. What the hell do you want kid?"

Naruto smirked at the Kyuubi.

"Relax big guy! I just want a favor. I'm about to die and I'm pretty sure that if I die, you die so I have a proposal."

"You want to make a proposal? With me? Hah. Sure why not let's hear it brat."

Naruto made a face at being called a brat and began to explain.

"Okay well my proposal is that you should lend me your chakra whenever I ask or need it, like now. That way we don't die and you know, you're kind of living here for free so I do believe that you need to start paying rent."

The Kyuubi chuckled harshly. "Hah! Demanding something from me without giving anything back...What guts! Alright kid since you've made me laugh I'll lend you my chakra but, don't expect to always get your way kid. Don't forget, you don't fucking own me."

Naruto snorted. "Never said that I did."

A red wave of chakra enveloped Naruto and he was sent back to the his actual free-falling position. Naruto smirked at the rush of red chakra that he felt through out his system. THIS, this was a feeling he could get used to. Naruto bit his hid thumb and then quickly made the hand seals.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

A large toad wearing clothing and smoking a pipe appeared. Although Naruto was now dead tired, he yelled loudly in excitement and began to scamper around. He ran towards the back and practically jumped for joy, there was no stupid tail!

"I DID IT!"

Naruto's celebration was short-lived.

"You lil punk! What'cha do'in on my head? I finally get some fresh air and what the hell is this? Yo Punk where's Jiraya?!"

Naruto tiredly glared down at the rude toad.

"Who? You talking about that Ero-sennin?

"Yea that guy. Where is he? That perverted geezer, calling me to such a place. Even putting some weird kid on my head. I'll destroy him when I see him."

"Hold on dude. I summoned you so that I didn't die."

The toad gave Naruto a look of disbelief and then bursted into laughter.

"Gahahaha! You shouldn't lie punk! There's no way in hell a lil' shrimp like you could summon me. haha!"

Due to exhaustion, frustration, and provocation, Naruto snapped.

"You piece of shit toad! How dare you say such a thing! I'm the one who summoned you, so I'm your damn master! Got that you stupid toad?"

"What the... Who the hell do you think you're talking to? HEY! Some lil'punk is saying he's the master of boss toad Gamabunta-sama? You want your head ripped off?! Eh?!

Naruto squeaked, realizing that he was currently indebted to giant toad and that the said toad could totally squash him whenever he pleased.

"Uhm...I'm sorry Boss toad-sama?"

"Hmph...Well...calm down. Then I'll make you my underling. Be thankful."

"Y-yes?! Boss Toad-sama?!"

Naruto then felt a long and tongue wrap around him. He briefly wondered if he should get used to tongues wrapping around him and then hollered as the Gamabunta jumped out of the ravine and back on to the cliff. Naruto was so extremely exhausted now.

"I'm...I'm just gonna take a short nap now," Naruto murmured before completely passing out.

_...Sasuke's Training..._

"Don't tell me your tired just from a little rock climbing."

Sasuke took in a large breath of air and glared ever so slightly at his barely sweating sensei. What the heck? Of course he was tired! He had just forced them to climb a large mountain with only one hand. How could he not be tired!? He wasn't fucking Rock Lee.

"Psh...No way. You're the one that looks tired Sensei."

That was a lie. The only signs of struggle on his gray-haired sensei was the thin sheen of sweat near his exposed right eye.

"Hm... You're right I am sweating aren't I? I guess that I'm getting a bit out of shape. Alright then, for the sake of getting back into shape let's just walk down using chakra and then climb back up with the other arm. That'll serve as a good pre-warm up."

Sasuke felt his jaw drop. What? Again? With the other arm? PRE-WARMUP? PRE?! Sasuke faintly register the fact that Kakashi had picked him up by the collar of his blue shirt and was now walking him down the cliff of the mountain.

"You're gonna catch flies in your mouth Sasuke-chan. I suggest that you take this moment to catch your breath."

Sasuke closed his mouth ignoring the earlier 'chan' and began to calm his breaths.

"Alright now that you're calm, I'm going to explain how we're going to spend the month of training. Half of the day will be spent doing hellish physical training to increase your speed and strength. The last part of the day will be spent with trying to teach you one of my signature lightning jutsus, understood?"

Sasuke just barely nodded, he was still wrapping his head around the fact that one-handed mountain climbing was considered a pre-warm up. What could the warm up possibly be?!

"Good... now I hope that you have a good endurance. If not...well...you'll find a way."

Sasuke and then realized that Kakashi-sensei had just said something about hellish training. Wait...what was going on? What?!

.

.

.

Sasuke watched in awe and annoyance as Kakashi finished the seals and the sounds of chirping rang through the air. The chirping soon disappeared as Kakashi willed it away.

"So did you get that?"

His jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me you did that way too quickly!" Sasuke huffed in frustration.

Kakashi rolled his lone eye. "Then use your Sharingan to see. Aren't you suppose to be the Uchiha genius?"

Sasuke felt a vein pop. He would fucking show him a Uchiha genius and when he finally got home he would rip the head off of that damn Kakashi doll.

.

.

.

Sasuke collapsed to the ground, wheezing.

"At this rate Naruto's gonna beat you," Kakashi taunted.

Kakashi faintly heard the sounds of something flying through the air and moved the hand from behind his back to catch it. He easily caught the rocks and continued to do his one fingered push ups.

"If you have enough strength to be playing around I suggest you practice some more."

He heard Sasuke mumbling curses.

"Fucking Kakashi-sensei I'll send a damn chidori up his-"

"Oh, Sasuke I can hear you."

Sasuke cursed and Kakashi chuckled. Oh how he loved his superior senses. They made teasing his students just that much easier.

.

.

.

"Here I brought dinner. After you eat we'll do an hour of sparring before heading to the Inn to shower and sleep."

Sasuke crawled to his pathetic excuse of a dinner and peered inside the bag. Onigiri...once again. Sasuke really like Onigiri but these, these flavorless, barely stuck together, pieces of crap. He hated these. Sasuke disdainfully took a bite. He couldn't wait until this stupid month was over, he couldn't wait to have some delicious homemade Onigiri. He couldn't wait to sleep in his comfy bed rather than that itchy futon at the inn. He couldn't wait to have a **hot** shower rather then the ice cold ones that he was barely growing accustomed to. He couldn't fucking wait to get the hell away from the devil spartan that was Kakashi-sensei. He glanced over to Kakashi who was in midst of doing weighted one legged squats while giggling at that damn orange book. He took another disdainful bite of the onigiri.

Couldn't. Fucking. Wait.

.

.

.

"Hmm... you're not quite getting it."

Sasuke glared and threw a rock at the tuft of grey hair. As always the rock was easily caught by Kakashi's skillful hands.

"How the hell would you know? You haven't even looked up from that damn book once!"

Kakashi simply turned the page of his book resulting in infuriating Sasuke even more.

Sasuke felt a vein pop and his face go red. He had fucking had it! Sasuke began to make hand signs and poured the very last bit of his chakra into his hand. The sounds of thousands of birds filled the air.

Kakashi finally looked up from his book.

"It seems that we've actually finished early, impressive."

_...Sakura's Training..._

"We're here!" Raine cheered as she opened the door to the room they were going to stay in.

Sakura smiled widely and happily flopped down onto a bed, claiming it. She was so tired right now. They had left pretty late in the afternoon since Raine had to finish up some official business with the Hokage and since they had visited Lee. After that they had spent 5 hours travelling to some remote village that was still within Fire Country, to go train at and it was now almost midnight.

Raine sat down on her own twin sized bed and slid her Getas off. She wriggled her toes around. Oh how she loved being barefoot.

"So... should we build your strength and speed, help you actually master that last genjutsu you were barely able to use during the prelims, or learn a few Earth jutsu's through that Earth scroll we packed?"

Sakura shrugged. "How about all of the above?"

"Well we can try but... I don't know if you have the stamina or chakra for it. Yours is the lowest out of all of Team 7, after all...no offense or anything."

A frown made its way to Sakura's face and she placed both hands on either hip. "I have the best chakra control so it's not like I need a ton anyways. Besides! How am I suppose to compete with an Uchiha and a kid who's go the Kyuubi and don't you even get me started on Kakashi. I swear he's an alien or something."

Raine rolled her eyes.. "As true as that may be the amount of stamina and chakra you have is pitiful really. Just barely average and even with perfect chakra control you're going to end up wasting all of your chakra way too early leaving you weak and vulnerable." Raine then smacked her fist against her palm in an "Ah-Ha!" epiphany kind of way. "Ok I've decide! We're going to have an intense physical training secession to boost your stamina and chakra and I'll also teach you a new technique that will correspond with your 'perfect chakra control' after that we'll meditate for the last part of the day since that'll help with increasing your chakra as well and then right before bed you can practice some of those Earth jutsus in that Earth scroll! I'm a genius!"

Sakura nodded her head slightly. That didn't sound too difficult really. A little physical exercise, a bit of learning a new jutsu, a bit of meditating, and then a little solo learning before bed. It sounded doable.

"So...what jutsu are you going to teach me?"

Raine grinned wildly. "Have you ever heard of the Slug Princess?"

Sakura raised a pink brow.

"The slug princess? What the hell kind of bad fairy tale is that suppose to be?"

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.

.

"Come on! We've still got at least an hour and a half of running left."

Sakura gulped down more air. Her ankles were hurting due to the weights and she was already tired as hell. How was Raine able to do this and... Why were they running at 5 am?!

After that they had a ten minute water break and then proceeded to spar. Raine of course was handicapped, no jutsus. The rest of the day was spent doing various push ups, lunges, squats, sit ups, pull ups, frog jumps, and more running, much more running, TOO much running really.

By the end of the day Sakura could no longer stand and Raine was barely standing.

.

.

.

"That...was...a pretty...good work...out...yeah?"

"You're...freaking...crazy."

Raine rolled her eyes and helped Sakura to her feet. They had been doing nonstop physical training for the last week and today was the first day that Sakura had actually done every single thing.

After catching her breath Raine helped Sakura to her feet and the two girls hobbled back to their Inn.

"When we get back we'll shower, eat, and then meditate, ok?"

Sakura lazily nodded. She honestly just wanted to sleep but the chances of Raine allowing her to skip meditation for the day were slim to none.

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.

.

Sakura greedily downed her water bottle. It was now 8am and they had just finished running. At first they had woken up at 4 and ran until 6:30 but, now that Sakura's stamina had increased it had been extended to 8. Raine took a sip of her own water bottle and sat down next to a heavily breathing Sakura.

"Okay I think you're ready to finally learn the Slug Princess's signature technique."

Sakura took a deep breath and watched carefully.

"Now, mind you, my chakra control isn't the greatest so I can't really use this in battle. I can only do this when I can concentrate one hundred percent on it. You on the other hand, since you have such amazing chakra control, should be able to do this in combat and whenever you want really."

Sakura nodded her head.

"Okay so you need to concentrate your chakra to the limb that you're going to attack with. For this demonstration I'll be concentrating it to my right hand. There should be so much chakra concentrated that you can see it. Can you see mine?"

Sakura nodded her again. Raine's Celeste colored chakra was clearly visible around her fist.

"Alright. Now you can't just punch anything and expect this technique to work. The key to this technique is timing. At the exact moment that your fist of leg connects with its target, your chakra that you had concentrated should be released. The resulting effects are monstrous."

Sakura nodded her head again.

Raine smiled and walked to a nearby boulder. She once again concentrated her chakra to her right hand and then she slowly cocked her fist back before punching and reducing it to ruble and dust.

Sakura's entire jaw dropped. "Ho-ly-shit."

Raine grinned wickedly. "Your turn."

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.

.

"So how are the Earth jutsus coming along?"

"What do you mean?"

Raine rolled an eye. "I told you to learn one right before you went to bed like a week and a half ago."

Sakura chuckled nervously causing Raine to narrow her eyes. "You have been practicing one right?"

Sakura continued to chuckle nervously and Raine sighed before grinning wickedly.

"Since you haven't been working on that I guess we can just spend more time sparring!"

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.

.

"Come on now weren't you suppose to have the best chakra control? Again."

Sakura growled and ran at the snow-haired girl. Punch, kick, punch, kick. They were all being easily dodged. Sakura summoned a simple earth clone, the one Earth jutsu she was now slowly mastering, and had it distract Raine. It easily distracted Raine and when the snow-haired girl had her back turned, Sakura sent a chakra infused kick. Right before Sakura's leg could connect with Raine's back, an ice wall appeared. Sakura tried her best to release her chakra at the correct moment but, she had released it a second to early causing her to only be able to crack the wall.

She flipped back and bit her lip. This timing stuff was hard.

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.

.

"Come on Sakura! If you can't break the ice you'll never be able to get to me."

Sakura sent a kick which was easily dodged with a back flip. The pink haired girl gritted her teeth.

"COME ON!" Her inner self yelled.

Punch, kick, punch, kick, punch, punch, kick. The pattern continued until she finally had Raine back up against a boulder. Sakura smirked. "I've got you now!"

As always Raine created an Ice barrier. This time the barrier was nothing and easily shatter. Sakura's fist connected with Raine's stomach, sending her into the boulder and breaking the boulder as well. Sakura clicked her tongue, once she watched 'Raine' turn into a puddle of water.

From behind her the real Raine whistled.

"Good job! We can head back tomorrow and we'll still have a whole day to spare."

_...A day before the exam..._

"Are you sure that you two should be back already? You might wanna continue training because there's no way that you're gonna beat my new super jutsu."

Sasuke scoffed. "Oh yeah, the new super jutsu that you have clearly mastered and has sent you to the hospital after a single successful use. I'm so scared."

"Why you!"

Naruto lunged at Sasuke and the two boys began wrestling for dominance. From beside Naruto's bed, a black haired boy sighed and turned to a pink haired girl.

"How do you deal with this all the time?"

Sakura sighed as well. "Honestly, if it weren't for Raine-nee, I don't think I could."

"Speaking of this Raine-nee where is she?"

Sakura made a face and Shikamaru raised an eyebrow in response. Naruto and Sasuke had also caught the face Sakura made and stopped their little battle.

"What's wrong Sakura?"

"Raine and I were making our way over here when she suddenly stopped by Lee's room."

Naruto raised his eyebrow this time. "And?"

"She told me to go on ahead because she needed to pick something up, but now that I really think about it she kind of had **that** look on her face."

"Shit!" Sasuke yelled as he hopped off of the bed.

Naruto had a similar reaction and soon enough Team 7 was out of the room and headed towards Lee's, leaving behind a very confused Shikamaru. The threesome ran through the halls bumping a few nurses along the way. The first one to reach Lee's door was of a course Sasuke. The ebony haired boy swung the door opened and took in the sight before him and what an odd sight it was.

Lee of course, was oblivious to the whole situation and was asleep on his hospital bed. But on the ground was a wide eyed Gaara and a smiling Raine whom had one hand on his cheek. Within seconds Naruto and Sakura arrived and all hell broke loose.

"Don't touch me!"

Sand erupted from Gaara's gourd and smashed an unsuspecting Raine into the wall. Raine gasped and felt a sickly wet substance behind her head. She watched as her vision blurred, but remained calm. Team 7 on the other hand, freaked.

"You bastard! Let go of Raine-nee."

Naruto readied himself to lung at the red headed sand nin.

"No," Raine croaked.

Naruto stopped himself and turned to see that the sand was releasing Raine. Sasuke caught the older girl's falling body and Naruto and Sakura appeared right beside them. Sakura immediately began to inspect the wound.

"She's bleeding quite a bit and she's definitely got a concussion."

Naruto gritted his teeth in worry and anger. Before he could say or do anything Raine put a hand on his face.

She gave him a stern look. "No."

She then turned to Gaara and smiled. "Our deal's still on."

Gaara made a face. "I'll kill you!"

Raine grinned. "You? Kill me? Not in a million years kid."

Gaara made another face and quickly looked each member of Team 7 in the eye. He took one last look at Raine and stood up.

"I'll kill you all."

And with that he disappeared in a whirl of sand.

* * *

Dun dun dun duuuuuunnnnnnnnnnn. Next chapter will hopefully be the conclusion of the chunin exam and from there we can start on the deviations from original story line. I can't wait!


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